


Clark and Lewis

by can_of_chili



Category: Lewis and Clark
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:27:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29624178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/can_of_chili/pseuds/can_of_chili
Summary: Lewis and Clark enemies to lovers story if Lewis was a popular high school douchebag and Clark was a nerd. Updates whenever we write.
Relationships: William Clark (1770-1838)/Meriwether Lewis
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Lewis POV

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter kinda sucks but it gets better. I think?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First Meeting

Lewis strode through the wide hallway like a king marching to court. Kids scurried out of his way, ducking their heads to avoid his attention. He was easily the most popular kid in school, and he loved it. Younger students would do anything he asked of them, too afraid of the consequences of defying him. And the older students, well, they were the ones who helped him exact his revenge. 

He continued down the hall, talking to some of his friends, when he noticed a kid walking backwards in his direction. He was short with strawberry blonde hair and was clearly immersed in conversation with a dark haired girl that was walking next to him. The kid got closer and closer, not realizing his impending doom. Lewis, of course, refused to move out of the way. He didn't step aside for anyone. 

The kid’s friend looked up and saw Lewis, eyes widening. She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him out of the way, but it was too late. He turned around just in time to run full force into Lewis. For a second, nobody in the hall moved. Everyone held their breath, waiting to see what Lewis would do. The boy’s blue eyes filled with fear and his shoulders were tense as he, too, waited for a reaction. 

Lewis’s gaze sharpened in deadly anger. This boy was going to be taught a lesson. The boy noticed the expression in Lewis’s face, and did the only logical thing he could do. He ran. Lewis snarled, how dare he run away. He could not let this boy go unpunished. Forgetting his original destination, Lewis dashed after the boy, locking onto his messy strawberry blonde hair as he turned down a small hallway that was rarely used. Lewis smirked as he realized that there would be no teachers to try to stop him when he got his revenge. He swept down the hallway, his long legs allowing him to close the gap between them quickly. The boy glanced back and Lewis thought that he heard him yelp when he saw how close he was. The boy ran faster and faster, until he yanked open a random door and hurried inside it, slamming it shut after him.  
Growling in anger, Lewis stopped in front of the door and placed his hand on the door knob, smiling when he realized that it wasn’t locked. He pulled it open, feeling a small resistance from what must have been the boy pulling back against him, but he was much stronger and had no trouble overpowering him. He heard a thud and saw that the boy had fallen back onto the floor of a janitor’s closet. Lewis sauntered in, leaving the door open so that anyone who walked by would hear the boy scream when he beat him up. He lifted his foot, ready to kick the boy who was now curled up in a fetal position on the floor, but stopped when he heard the door slam shut behind him and the clicking of a key turning in a lock.

Spinning around, Lewis tugged on the door knob, but no matter how hard he pulled, the door wouldn’t budge. How dare someone lock him in a god damn closet with some annoying nobody. After tugging on the door a few more times, he gave up. ‘Fuck,’ he thought. There was no point in beating up this kid if no one else could see or hear it. He turned to face the boy who was now sitting against the wall, looking terrified as Lewis stared down at him.

“Oh calm down,” he said. “I’m not going to touch you, trust me”

“How am I supposed to trust you? You just tried to kick me!” The boy said, affronted.

“You don’t have a choice. We’re stuck in here together until whoever locked us in here lets us out.”

“This is all your fault!” The boy exclaimed.

“No, it’s your fault! You ran into this closet.”

“Because you were chasing me!”

“You walked into me.”

The boy looked away, muttering something under his breath that sounded very similar to ‘pretentious git.’

Lewis’s face contorted in anger and he was about to try to kick the boy again when he remembered that he had said that he wouldn’t. The boy glared up at him, no longer hiding behind fear once he realized that Lewis really wasn’t going to do anything to him. 

“If we’re gonna be stuck here together, we should at least know each other’s names,” Lewis said, leaning up against the wall opposite from the boy.

“My name is Clark and I already know your name, everybody does,” Clark responded. Lewis smiled at this, he loved being so well known. Suddenly, Clark’s face twisted into a panicked expression and his eyes darted around the small room.

“What is it,” Lewis asked.

“U-um it’s nothing,” he said, but his breathing told a different story as it sped up, turning into tiny gasps. Lewis stared and had no idea what to do when Clark’s pale face turned an ugly shade of red and he curled in on himself, huddling in the back corner of the closet.

“Dude. What the hell?” Lewis asked. “I didn’t even do anything to you why are you freaking out.” 

“I-i-it’s not because of you,” Clark gasped out. 

“Then what’s your problem? Can you just shut up,” Lewis replied, annoyed.

“Sorry,” Clark whispered and Lewis had to strain to hear him, leaning closer and tilting his head towards the smaller boy. His eyes widening in shock when he saw a trail of tears falling steadily from Clark’s eyes. ‘What is he crying about,’ Lewis thought. ‘This isn’t my fault. Right? Wait, no stop. I don’t care about him.’ Lewis was drawn out of his thoughts when he heard noises that sounded suspiciously like whimpers coming from the corner that Clark had tucked himself into. When he focused his gaze back on the boy, he saw that his entire body was shaking as his quiet whimpers turned into strangled gasps. Beginning to get worried, Lewis started to make his way over to him when Clark’s eyes rolled up into his head and he fell sideways, hitting his head on the floor as he passed out.

“Shit!” Lewis exclaimed, falling to his knees next to the small boy and trying to figure out what had happened. He had been making such loud noises just a few seconds ago. ‘Maybe he had a heart attack,’ Lewis thought. ‘Oh my god. What if he’s dead? What will they do to me?’ Standing up as his panicked thoughts overwhelmed him, he went back over to the door and started pounding on it.

“Help, we’re locked in here, help!” He shouted, but everyone was already in classes far away from the small deserted hallway they were stuck in. Slamming his hand against the door one last time, Lewis hurried back over to Clark’s prone body. He hovered over him, unsure what to do when he remembered the unit they had had on CPR in health class a few months ago. He pressed his hands down on Clark’s chest and after pausing to steel himself and calm his nerves, he started pushing down to the beat of Stayin’ Alive. He paused every few compressions to check Clark’s pulse by putting his hand over the right side of his chest, where Lewis thought that his heart must be located, and started to get even more panicked when he still couldn’t feel anything. Thinking back to those health lessons, Lewis remembered something about doing ‘rescue breaths’ to get air into someone’s lungs. Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Lewis leaned down and placed his mouth against Clark’s. As soon as their lips touched, Lewis heard the door spring open behind him, revealing a worried looking janitor. He pulled away from Clark quickly and heard him draw in a rattling breath. Without pausing to make sure that Clark was okay, or to even look back at him, Lewis strode away, shoving past the janitor without a second glance. 

Touching his fingers to his lips, his mind started to wander. ‘Why were Clark’s lips so soft?’ Lewis stopped dead in his tracks, shook his head as if to rid himself of the strange train of thought, and hurried to his next class.


	2. Lewis POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Detention

Lewis walked down the empty hallways, his footsteps ringing in the heavy silence. His mind wandered, traveling back to the janitor’s closet. ‘Why did I have to use CPR?’ he thought. ‘He’s going to tell the whole school I kissed him.’ As his thoughts spiraled, considering the consequences of his friends finding out that he touched lips with another boy, his feet carried him into the science wing and stopped him in front of the door to Mr. Jefferson’s AP Chemistry class. He took a deep breath to ground himself and wipe the telltale signs of worry off his face before he pushed the door open hard enough for it to slam against the wall. 

Half of the kids jumped in surprise and Mr. Jefferson stopped drawing his atomic structure diagram to consider Lewis. “Welcome to class Lewis, you’re only a minute late so you can just sit down and I'll mark you present”

Nodding, Lewis walked to his seat in the back corner of the classroom, pushing the chair down as he pulled it out so that the metal screeched painfully before he slumped down in it, his backpack falling off his shoulder and hitting the ground lightly. As Mr. Jefferson continued his lecture, droning on about atomic radii and the periodic table, Lewis zoned out, his eyes drooping and head falling as he nodded off to sleep.

He was woken abruptly when he heard a cough above him. Peeling his eyes open, he looked up at Mr. Jefferson, who was holding his hand out expectantly. Lewis started at it, confused as his brain whirred back to life.

“Your homework Lewis,” the man said, exasperated. 

“Oh right, sorry,” Lewis responded, bending over to unzip his bag and pull out his folder. When he flipped it open, he saw a blank worksheet titled “AP Chem HW.” ‘Shit.’ He sat up slowly to face Mr. Jefferson, and winced when he saw the heavy look of disappointment on his face. 

“This is the third HW you’ve missed in a row so I have to give you detention,” he paused, looking conflicted, before he continued in a lower voice. “And remember Lewis if there’s anything going on with you, you can always tell me.”

“I’m fine,” Lewis replied quickly. “Is the detention after school today?”

“Yes that will work, come to my classroom after your last class,” Mr. Jefferson said, and when Lewis didn’t respond, he walked away frowning. Lewis felt himself dozing off again immediately and cursed his past self for going to bed so late. 

He was woken again when he heard the classroom door creak open. Turning his head, he saw the boy from the closet peering tentatively into the room. Lewis sat up in a panic, thinking that the boy, Clark, was here to spill his secrets and ruin his life. He was half out of his chair in an attempt to stop him when Mr. Jefferson spoke. 

“Clark,” he said. “You’re 20 minutes late to class.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Clark responded, sounding genuinely guilty. 

“If you had gotten here 10 minutes earlier, I would have let it slide, but since it was 20 minutes I can’t make an exception, you’ll have to see me after school for a detention. Does today work?”

Clark looked shocked and he stood in silence for a few seconds before responding: “Um, y-yes that works, I’m so sorry,” and hurrying to his seat. Lewis lowered himself back down, his fear abated as he realized that Clark was actually in his class. He reprimanded himself in his head for letting one boy affect him so much and promised himself that he would completely forget about him and what had happened. 

He kept his promise for just under 10 seconds until he looked up and saw that Clark had sat in the seat in front of him, not realizing that the boy he had been stuck in the closet with was sitting right behind him. Lewis found that he couldn’t take his eyes off of Clark. He took in his fluffy strawberry blonde hair and pale skin. He saw a small tremor pass through his skinny body and traced the path of a drop of sweat as it trailed down his neck. Lewis became so mesmerized that he didn’t notice the bell had rung until Clark stood up in front of him and the back of his jeans filled Lewis’s vision.

Eyes widening in shock, Lewis shot up from his chair and swung his bag onto his shoulder before hurrying out of the classroom.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lewis walked into Mr. Jefferson’s classroom later that day for detention, and saw Clark standing in the middle of the room, staring down at his hands as he fiddled with them. Mr. Jefferson was working at his desk, but looked up as Lewis walked in.

“Ah, Lewis, you’re here. We can get started,” he said. Clark spun around to face Lewis with a fearful look on his face, but ducked his head down as soon as their eyes met. Lewis didn't remember them being such a piercing blue and he yanked his gaze back up to look at Mr. Jefferson before he could process that thought.

“I’ve divided the blackboard into two sections. Each of you will need to fill in one of the sections. Lewis you’re writing ‘I will do my homework’ and Clark you are writing ‘I won’t be late to class.’ I’ll be here to supervise and neither of you can leave until both of your sections are filled up.”

Lewis groaned in his head, he hated writing lines, it was always so tedious and left his wrist sore for days after. He trudged over to the blackboard and picked up the short piece of chalk from the tray in front of the board. With a sigh, he reached up to the top of the board and began writing in big, messy letters. He heard footsteps come up next to him and soon the sound of Clark’s writing joined his, filling the quiet classroom with the taps and scrapes of chalk being drawn across the board. The sounds were like music, the taps out of time with each other, but creating a melody nonetheless. 

Lewis continued writing, letting himself be absorbed into the calming music, and soon found that he was almost done. He shook his hand out, and continued on with a renewed passion, wanting to get out of this disgusting school as quickly as he could. His rush to finish was interrupted by Mr. Jefferson standing up and gathering his papers together. He saw Clark stop writing and turn to face their teacher out of the corner of his eye and he put down his chalk so that he could find out what was happening as well. Mr. Jefferson looked frantic, stuffing his carefully graded tests in folders and trying to balance everything in his hands.

“I’m so sorry, I forgot that I had a department meeting today, I have to go. I probably won't be back before you’re done, but this board better be filled before either of you leave.”

Lewis looked over at Clark’s side of the board and groaned in annoyance, this time out loud, when he saw that only the bottom half was filled. “He’s not going to be done for ages,” Lewis said. “Why can’t I just leave when I finish?”

Mr. Jefferson smiled and replied evilly, “Because I said so. Unless you want another detention? I trust Clark to tell me if you leave before he finishes.”

Lewis turned to face Clark, whose eyes were darting back and forth like a cornered animal before he nodded hesitantly. “Of course, Mr. Jefferson,” he parroted. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t leave early.”

Lewis glared at the short boy, wanting to see him cower and regret the decision he had made, but Clark just smiled back at him, his perfect white teeth sparkling and gleaming behind his full lips. ‘No! Why am I thinking about his mouth,’ Lewis thought. ‘I hate him.’ He shook his head from side to side to rid himself of the traitorous thoughts and turned back to Mr. Jefferson who was looking at him expectantly.

“Fine. I’ll stay,” Lewis gritted out, glare not leaving his face even after Mr. Jefferson walked out of the room. As soon as the door closed, he walked towards Clark, overcome with an urge to punch the stupid smile off of his face. Clark backed away quickly, panic taking over his expression.

“No, don’t. Mr. Jefferson will know it was you if you punch me,” he said, his quavering voice giving away the extent of his fear. Lewis considered this point for a moment before deciding that Clark was right and it wasn’t worth another detention just to punch some kid in the face.

“Just hurry up and finish quickly,” he said, moving back to his side of the blackboard to do the same thing. He was done within 5 minutes and put the almost non-existent piece of chalk down, wiping the dust off his hands and onto his pants. He looked back at Clark and saw that he was still moving at that obnoxiously slow pace, making sure that each of his letters was perfect. Lewis walked over to Mr. Jefferson’s large wooden desk, dragging his backpack after him, and leaned against it. He watched Clark write, his small arms straining to reach higher on the blackboard. Clark must have sensed Lewis’s gaze on him, because he turned around to face him, looking uncomfortable.

“Stop staring at me, you creep,” he said. He was trying to sound tough, but the effect was ruined when his voice cracked at the last word. Lewis smirked, but didn’t take his eyes off of him.

“I’ll stop when you finish writing,” Lewis said. Clark glared at him but returned to his lines, moving faster and with less care for their neatness. He kept glancing over at Lewis to see if he was still staring and looked away quickly whenever their eyes met. This continued on for a few minutes before Lewis got bored of his game and started talking.  
“So why’d you pass out in that closet earlier?” he asked. Clark dropped the chalk in shock as Lewis’s words cut through the silence and had to fumble to catch it. He looked at Lewis, his face redder than it had been a minute ago, and took a minute to calm himself down before responding.

“I’m claustrophobic,” he said in a small voice, turning away from Lewis in embarrassment. 

“You passed out cause you were scared? Wow, you’re such a wimp,” Lewis said automatically, ignoring the voice in the back of his head telling him not to, and smiled when he saw that Clark looked upset.

“Just leave me alone and let me write,” he said. “I thought you wanted to leave quickly.” Lewis knew that he was right and decided to go back to staring at Clark just to creep him out. It didn’t hurt that the afternoon light slicing through the window illuminated Clark’s prominent cheekbones. Clark ignored him resolutely and focused on his writing, the tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth as he concentrated. He finished the line he was writing and tried to reach his arm up above it to write the next one, but couldn’t reach. He glanced over at Lewis before huffing and pulling a chair over to the board. He climbed on top of it, wobbling a bit before he got his balance, and glared over at Lewis. Lewis smiled maliciously and opened his mouth to tease him, but Clark spoke before he could.

“Shut up,” he mumbled. 

“But I didn’t even say anything,” Lewis responded innocently. 

“You were going to tease me. Don’t,” Clark commanded. Lewis bristled, how dare Clark tell him what to do.

“You really think you can stop me?” Lewis growled taking a step towards the short boy, who squeaked and backed away.

“Nope, nope. I’m sorry, you know I can’t stop you,” Clark said, backing down. Smiling at his victory, Lewis leaned back against the desk again and gestured for Clark to continue writing. Clark tried to glare at him, but he looked much more scared than upset. After a minute, he mumbled something under his breath and went back to writing. 

Lewis took out his notebook and flipped it open to stare down at his stupid calculus notes. He ripped out one of the pages and crumpled it up into a ball before throwing it at Clark, who yelped when it hit him right in the head and made him wobble unsteadily. 

“You’re such a jerk,” he said, not looking at Lewis. Lewis didn’t respond, and just threw another crumpled ball of notes at Clark, this one landing in his curly hair and staying there. Clark flinched, but didn’t reach up to remove it. Lewis watched as he gritted his teeth and gripped the chalk harder, his writing devolving into scribbles as his anger overtook him. Lewis continued to throw paper at Clark, aiming for different parts of his body. With each ball that hit him, Clark’s grip on the chalk grew tighter until his skin was a ghostly white and his nails were digging into his hand. He wrote the last few lines at a lightning-fast pace and dropped his chalk when he finished, letting it snap into two pieces as it hit the tray. He pulled the paper out of his hair and threw it to the ground, making Lewis smirk. Once the boy had picked up his backpack and stormed out of the room, Lewis waited a minute for the weight of his anger to dissipate before humming as he too left the room, albeit much more calmly.

He left the science hallway, heading to the main entrance. He had his hand on the doorknob that would grant him his freedom when someone called out his name behind him.  
“Lewis, Lewis. Wait.” It was his math teacher. Mrs. Davidson. He hated that woman and her class; math was by far his least favorite subject and the only one that he had been put with the stupid kids for.

“Yes?” he responded, trying and failing to keep the annoyance at being stopped out of his voice.

“I’m sorry to keep you. I need to talk to you about your math grade, you’ve been failing my class all year,” she said quickly.

“I know,” Lewis snapped back, turning back to the door to try to make his exit.

“I’m signing you up for tutoring,” she said. Lewis froze.

“I don’t need tutoring,” he said icily.

“Yes, you do Lewis. I’ve given you two months to fix your grade and it’s only gotten worse so giving you a tutor is my only option,” she explained. Lewis stared at her, horrified and too shocked to respond.

“I still have to talk to the student I want to tutor you, but unless I tell you otherwise, you’ll start tomorrow after school. Ok?” Mrs. Davidson asked and walked away before she got confirmation from Lewis. Lewis stood, his hand still gripping the doorknob for what felt like an eternity before realizing that there was a simple solution to his problem; he would just show up late enough for his tutor, whoever it was, to have gotten impatient enough to leave. Calmed by his decision, he turned the doorknob and walked out of the school.


	3. Clark POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tutoring

RIIIIING. The last bell of the day echoed through the halls. Within seconds, a cacophony of noise hit Clark as kids rushed to get home, yelling to their friends. He let his classmates leave their english class ahead of him so he wouldn’t be crushed by all of their pushing and shoving. Keeping his head down, he dove into the tidal wave of kids and made his way to his locker. It was around the corner from his math class, so Clark shoved all his books into his backpack and quickly made his way there. His teacher had asked him if he could tutor one of her students today, and he didn't have anything better to do. 

Mrs. Davidson was alone when he reached the class, finishing up work at her desk. She nodded to Clark as he entered, and he gave her a polite hello. 

“The kid your tutoring should be here soon,” she said, her voice brisk as she started to pack up her things. “I, unfortunately, have to run to pick my kids up from school, so make sure you lock the door behind you when you are done, alright?” Clark smiled at her, sitting in his usual seat and pulling out his notebook. 

“Of course,” he replied. “Have a nice day!” 

“You too!” With that, she dashed out the door. Clark glanced at the clock, five minutes had passed since the final bell. Hopefully the kid would show up soon. 

Another ten minutes past, and nothing. Clark started to get annoyed, he was taking time out of his own day to do this kid a favor, for Christ sake. He resolved to wait another 10 minutes to see if the kid showed up, and started working on his science homework to pass the time. 

Twenty minutes later, Clark was fuming. Who the hell was this kid? Clark started angrily throwing his things back into his bag. He slung it over his shoulder and went to storm out of the room, when he collided with someone’s chest. 

“Woah, where are you running off to? I thought you were going to teach me math, dude.” There, taking up most of the doorway, was Lewis. Of course it was Lewis, it was just Clark’s shitty luck at work again. 

“You,” Clark said, voice quivering with barely restrained anger, “are thirty five FUCKING minutes late.” Clark glared up at the boy, who stared right back down at him. 

“Look, my bad or whatever, but I was busy.” Lewis said. Clark just crossed his arms. He tried to glare menacingly at the boy, but the severe height difference forced him to crane his neck to look Lewis in the eyes.“It’s not like you have somewhere better to be, Clarky.” Lewis said with a smirk. Clark could not believe the AUDACITY this asshole had. 

“For one thing, don’t call me Clarky, you prick.” Lewis’s gaze sharpened at Clark’s words. “And, shockingly enough, I have a life. The world doesn’t revolve around you, but I guess your head is too far up your own ass to realize that.” Clark’s voice rose more and more as he spoke, until he was basically shouting. His breathing was ragged and the older boy took a step towards him, forcing Clark back into the class. Lewis leaned down until they were nose to nose. 

“Saying shit like that, you’re just begging to have your ass beat. But, I'll settle for you teaching me math.” He gave Clark a shove and stalked past him, plopping down in the nearest desk. Clark tilted his head back and let out a breath, debating whether he not he wanted to just leave Lewis to fail calculus. Against his better judgment, he turned back around and sat next to him. 

“What do you need help with,” grumbled Clark, still glaring at Lewis. Just because he was going to help the other boy didn't mean he had to be nice about it. 

“Ummm,” Lewis suddenly looked kind of shy. Clark frowned at him in confusion. Lewis was never shy. “Everything. I’ve failed, like, every test we’ve had this year.” Clark’s eyes widened in shock. 

“It’s November,” he said dumbly. Lewis glared at him. 

“I’m aware of that,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Why haven't you gotten help sooner?” Clark asked incredulously. 

“I’m here now, aren’t I,” Lewis’s stare got more and more hostile at the mix of surprise and pity on Clark’s face. Clark noticed, and shook himself, trying to hide his shock. 

“Um, let’s get started then,” Clark got his notebook out, flipping to his notes from the beginning of the year. The two of them sat in awkward silence as Clark looked through the material they had done this year, trying to decide where to begin. 

“Alright, why don’t we just start from the beginning and review the notes for the first chapter.” Clark glanced up when Lewis didn't start looking through his notebook. “Hurry up and get them out, we don't have all day.” Lewis just looked at Clark with disdain. 

“I don’t have notes for this,” he said tightly. Clark sighed with exasperation. 

“You didn’t take notes? No wonder you're failing.” Clark’s condescending tone rang through the room, and he could see Lewis start to get visibly angry. 

“I did take notes, asshole, I just don't have them anymore,” Lewis said. Clark frowned, trying to figure out how he lost his notes. Then it hit him. He glared at Lewis. 

“Maybe if you didn't throw all of your math notes at me yesterday, you would understand the material.” Clark spat. Lewis just glared back. 

“I hardly think throwing my notes at you yesterday changed anything.” Clark opened his mouth to argue, but Lewis cut him off. “What’s done is done, are you going to teach me math, or are we both wasting our time?” Clark glared, but decided to let the issue drop. He started going over all of his notes on functions and continuity with Lewis, pausing occasionally to answer some of Lewis’s questions and snap at some of Lewis’s rude comments. 

Clark was actually pretty surprised by how fast Lewis picked up the material when it was carefully explained to him. He looked at the clock, half an hour had gone by. He could probably stay for another fifteen minutes before he had to get home to help his little sister with her homework. 

“Okay, I’m going to give you some practice problems and when you're finished we can go over the ones you got wrong,” Clark said. 

“Ouch, you don’t think I’ll get them all right? Frankly, I’m hurt.” Lewis said sarcastically. Clark just glanced over at him, but didn't deign to respond. He slid Lewis a paper with a few problems, and Lewis snatched it out of his hand. 

After writing furiously for a few minutes, Lewis gave the paper back to Clark. Clark quickly checked over his work. He was surprised by how many he got right, but frowned when he looked at the addition in one of the problems. 

“Lewis, what’s 33 plus 77?”

“100,” Lewis responded immediately, oozing with confidence. Clark just stared at him, a smile playing at his lips. 

“I'll chalk that up to you being a dumbass and pretend I didn't hear that. 33 plus 77 is 110.” Clark was fully grinning now. Lewis stared at him in outrage. 

“Wipe that dumb smile off your face,” he growled. Clark burst out into laughter as he started putting his stuff back in his bag. 

“Can’t wait to do this again, Lewis,” Clark said, only somewhat sarcastically. “It’s been a real pleasure.” Lewis looked annoyed, but when Clark’s words registered it shifted to confusion. 

“Again?” he asked. Clark fixed him with a stare. What a dunce. 

“Lewis, you failed EVERY test. This is not a one time deal,” Clark leaned over and scribbled something onto Lewis’s paper. “That’s my phone number. Text me so we can figure out what times work.” Lewis looked violently unexcited at the idea of more math tutoring, but got his phone out to input the number into his contracts.   
Clark started walking towards the door. “If you're going to stay here and pout, make sure to lock the door behind you when you leave.” Clark glanced back when he reached the doorway to see Lewis glaring at him.

“You are going to be seeing a lot more of me, get excited.” With that, he walked out, leaving Lewis fuming behind him.


	4. Clark POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tutoring Pt. 2

Clark was laying on his bed, slaving away at his AP Euro reading and notes when his phone vibrated. He reached over and grabbed it off his nightstand, frowning when he saw the message. 

**Tuesday 10:27 PM**  
UNKNOWN NUMBER: sup loser  
CLARK: Lewis?  
UNKNOWN NUMBER: who else would it be dumbass

Clark sighed, unsurprised by Lewis’s hostility. 

CLARK: what time are you free for tutoring  
LEWIS: idk  
CLARK: that is a SUPREMELY unhelpful answer  
LEWIS: what can I say im a busy guy  
CLARK: are you free tomorrow after school  
LEWIS: no  
CLARK: what about after school thursday  
LEWIS: no  
CLARK: friday?  
LEWIS: no  
CLARK: the weekend?  
LEWIS: hell no im not wasting my weekend doing math

Clark let out an exasperated breath. Lewis was so fucking annoying. Clark swore his only purpose in life was to make him miserable. 

CLARK: what about at night  
LEWIS: the only night i dont have a game is thursday but hanging out with you is NOT how i would choose to spend my free time (offense intended)  
CLARK: your coming over, unless you want to fail calc  
LEWIS: fine ig  
CLARK: my address is 352 dawson rd be here at 7 you better not be late again  
LEWIS: me? never

Clark collapsed back onto his bed and stared at his ceiling, their quick conversation already draining what little energy he had left. Lewis was such a tool. Clark didn't know how he was going to stand having the kid crammed into his tiny room with him. Groaning, he dragged himself out of his bed to go make sure his mother was okay with having someone over. He knew his mom wouldn’t mind, but it didn't hurt to check. 

His old oak door protested with a loud creak as he opened it. Clark winced, not wanting to wake up his little sister. He crept past her door, which was covered in a variety of sparkly stickers and drawings. Stopping at the top of his steps, he tried to listen and see if his mom was still downstairs. He heard a faint voice in their small kitchen and stomped down, making sure she could hear him coming. When Clark reached the kitchen, his mother turned to face him. 

She was talking on the phone, probably with one of her friends, and held up a finger to Clark. Her long blonde hair cascaded gently down her back and wrinkles formed at the corners of her blue eyes when she laughed at something the person she was talking to said. 

“Marline, can you hang on a second? Clark just came down the stairs.” His mother’s clear voice rang through the room, bouncing joyously off the tile walls. She took the phone off her ear and looked at Clark with a warm smile. “What’s up, honey?” 

“Hi, mom. I was wondering, can the kid I'm tutoring come over on Thursday night? It’s the only time we could make work.” Clark spoke timidly, half hoping she would say no just so he could avoid spending time with Lewis. His mother’s smile broadened. 

“Of course!” she exclaimed. “I’m always happy to have people over, you know that.” 

“K, thanks mom,” Clark said, trying to hide his disappointment. He started walking over to the stairwell when he called to her over his shoulder. “Tell Marline I say hi.” With that, he dashed back up his stairs and shut himself up tight in his room. Maybe if he ignored the fact that Lewis was going to come over, the sense of foreboding that plagued would leave him alone. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday rushed by in its usual blur of Clark dragging himself out of bed, a moderately cold walk to school (or whatever could be considered cold in Southern Georgia in late fall), sitting through a multitude of droning lectures, then trudging back home. Even though they had Chem, Clark did his best to resolutely ignore Lewis, though he swore he felt Lewis’s eyes boring into the back of his skull the entire class. It didn’t matter, Clark was home soon enough. He ate family dinner with his mother and sister, helped his sister with her homework, did his own, and then collapsed on his bed. 

As hard as he tried, Clark couldn’t fall asleep. His mind wouldn’t shut up. ‘Lewis is coming over tomorrow. Here. Him, with his dark eyes, unruly hair, and designer clothes is going to be stuck in the same cramped, run down room as me. Holy hell, he’s such an asshole. I can’t STAND him. Why did I ever offer to have him come here?’ Clark’s thoughts continued to violently spiral until he fell into an uneasy sleep. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clark woke up Thursday morning in a bundle of nerves. He knew his fear was somewhat illogical, Lewis was just a person after all. ‘A person who spends his free time beating people up and tearing them apart with just a few words.’ His brain argued back. ‘A person who lavishes in the wealth of his father’s successful business. What will he say about my house? We’re not wealthy in the slightest; mom is a single working mother with two kids, the first of which she had as a teen. How could we be?’ 

Clark tried to calm himself down with his usual cup of hot coffee with cream but the caffeine only amplified his fears. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he barely noticed when his mother came down the stairs. She frowned at him, picking up on his anxious mood. 

“Everything okay, honey?” she asked. Clark blinked a few times, retreating from his intrusive thoughts enough to respond. 

“Yea, of course.” His voice sounded far away, even to his own ears. His mom’s frown deepened. Clark knew he was a terrible liar, but he really didn't want to talk about Lewis more than he had to. “Really, mom, I’m fine. I just have a quiz today and I’m a little worried.” Lie. Hopefully one she wouldn’t notice though. His mom looked skeptical, but Clark grabbed his bag and dashed out the door with a hurried goodbye before she could press him for more information. 

It was a little below 60 degrees, so Clark wore a sweater to help keep the chill out. Although he had his driver's license, his family only had one car. The walk to school was a little over a mile, but he didn’t mind. It usually gave him time to clear his head. The walk was also one of the only times Clark did any sort of physical activity. His slight frame had never wanted to cooperate in order to play sports and after a while, Clark gave up on them all together. They weren’t really his thing anyways. 

Soon enough, Worth County High School’s brick facade loomed in his vision. All of the trepidation he had been resolutely ignoring rushed back when he saw who was standing in the parking lot outside of the building. Lewis. 

He was leaning casually on his red mustang, arms waving in grey hoodie sleeves as he animatedly told a story to a group of his friends who were all hanging around him. They laughed, and one of the girls put her hand on his arm. Lewis tried not to let his reaction show, but Clark noticed how he tensed and shifted away from her. Strange. Come to think of it, Clark had never seen Lewis with a girlfriend. Maybe he had one and she lived somewhere else. Or maybe Lewis just thought he was too good for everyone. Probably that. 

Clark walked by the group as quickly as he could, trying not to draw Lewis’s attention. When he reached the school’s double doors, he glanced back to make sure he was in the clear. His eyes widened when he made direct eye contact with Lewis, who was ignoring the people talking to him. The expression on his face was unreadable and Clark decided it would be in his best interest to get away from Lewis’s dark gaze as fast as he could. Ducking into the school, he rushed to his first class in an attempt to escape the strange rush of emotions he felt. 

The day went by fairly quickly. Clark didn’t have chemistry, a fact of which he was eternally grateful for. He did have his Euro class, which was the only class he had with his best friend Alessandra. Well, his only friend. But that's not the point. Alessandra was one of the best things that ever happened to him. He was (and still kind of is) an awkward nerd no one wanted to be around. Alessandra claimed him as her best friend back in third grade and the rest was history. Every second, they spent together. Euro was also the only class in which Clark got in trouble for talking, but Alessandra was always chatty and bursting with energy, and her enthusiasm was contagious.  
All too soon, the day was over, and Clark headed back home to prepare himself for what was to come. He first set off to tidying up their house. He organized all of their shoes by the door into a nice, neat pile, swept the floors, and organized the piles of magazines haphazardly strewn across their small, glass living room table. He was so focused on trying to make everything look nice, he didn’t notice his mother walk into the room. 

“Ahem,” his mother coughed. Clark jumped and spun around, almost knocking over the neat stack he made. She was standing in the doorway, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. “You never clean, what’s going on with you?” 

“I just wanted the house to look presentable for when the kid comes over later,” Clark said nervously. He hoped she wouldn’t keep pressing him on the issue.  
“Alright,” his mom looked unconvinced, but started putting her stuff down. “Can you go pick your sister up from aftercare? I’m going to do some work, then I’ll get dinner started.” Clark nodded, grateful for an excuse to avoid another line of questioning. He dashed out the door and hurried a few blocks down to his sister’s elementary school. She and a bunch of her friends were playing tag on the run down playground. He was in the middle of signing her out when he was assaulted by a fierce hug. 

“CLAARRRRK!” Maisie’s high pitched voice rang through the chilly air. Clark smiled down at her, wrapping one arm around her he finished signing her out. 

“Hey, kiddo,” he said happily. “Go grab your bag and we can head home.” Clark watched as his sister dashed off to grab her bright orange backpack. She trotted back over to him and started regaling him with tales of her day as they started walking. In no time at all, they were back at home and Maisie ran upstairs to go play video games in her room. 

“We’re back, mom,” Clark shouted, wandering up the stairs. 

“K, the spaghetti will be ready at six thirtyish!” she called back. Perfect. That would give Clark plenty of time to clean his room before Lewis came. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Dinner!” his mom’s voice was muffled as it traveled up to Clark. He sighed, putting down his computer. Emerging from his room, he saw a flash of strawberry blonde hair as Maisie dashed down the stairs. 

Their tiny kitchen table was practically overflowing with plates covered in spaghetti, bowls of salad, and tall glasses of milk. Clark’s mom always insisted they drink whole milk, saying it would help them grow big and strong. That didn’t pan out at all for Clark, but he drank it nonetheless. Maisie had already started digging in, aggressively spinning the spaghetti on her fork before shoveling it into her mouth. Clark grinned. 

“You eat like a starving bear, Maisie.” Clark’s mom gave him a look and Maisie stared up at him in outrage. 

“I do not!” she exclaimed, words muffled by the half eaten spaghetti in her mouth. 

“Do too,” Clark said, sliding into his seat. His stomach rumbled as the rich, saucy smell of the meal rose up to greet him. 

“Do not!” Maisie replied. 

“Do too,” Clark shot back. 

“Alright, enough.” His mother rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth were pulled up in a smile as she looked at her kids. They slid into easy conversation in between bites of food; Maisie talking about the games she played at recess, Clark complaining about his workload, and his mother talking about all the different patients she saw that day. They finished up fairly quickly and started clearing the dishes when Clark glanced at his watch. It was 6:58. Shit. He looked at his mother and sister, who had already started loading the dishwasher. 

“Lewis will be here soon, please don't be weird,” Clark begged. His mother stopped what she was doing and straightened, turning around to look at him. 

“Lewis? You didn't say it was a BOY that’s coming over,” she said suggestively. “Is that why you've been acting so weird?” She was practically grinning at Clark. 

“It's not like that mom,” he responded, annoyed. 

“Hmmm, suuuuure it's not,” her smile only grew and Clark could feel his face starting to heat up. 

“It's not! And it doesn't matter anyways, he's definitely straight,” Clark protested. 

“Hm, we’ll see.” His mom looked unconvinced, but returned to cleaning the dishes. Maisie suddenly popped up next to Clark, nearly causing him to drop the stack of plates he was carrying. 

“CLARK AND LEWIS SITTING IN A TREE K-I-S-S-I-N-G!” she bellowed, twirling in circles around the room. Clark could tell his face was bright red.  
“Maisie shut up!” he yelled, putting the plates down and chasing after her. She giggled and evaded his attempts to grab her, singing boisterously all the while. Clark chased her into the living room and managed to pick her up in his arms. At that moment, there was a loud knock on their front door. Clark met his sister’s wide, excited eyes and quickly dumped her on the couch, where she dissolved in a fit of giggles. He glared at her and sent his mother a pleading look, imploring her to control Maisie. She just looked back at him with an evil smile. 

Clark took a deep breath to steel himself, then threw the door wide open. His mother and sister crowded closer, trying to get a good look at their guest. There, taking up most of the doorway and looking supremely uncomfortable, was Lewis. 

For a second, Clark was at a loss for words. It was so odd, seeing the school’s most popular asshole standing in his doorway. It felt like he was dreaming. 

“Uhh, can I come in?” Lewis said sheepishly. Clark shook himself out of his daze and stepped aside. 

“Of course,” his voice sounded weak and nervous. He cleared his throat and tried again. “This is my mom and little sister Maisie.” Lewis stepped past Clark, who was assaulted by the thick scent of his cologne. Lewis gave Clark’s mom a charming smile. 

“It’s lovely to meet you. Thank you for having me over,” he said politely. Clark shut the door behind Lewis and went to stand next to him. 

“Of course,” she smiled. “I’m always happy to have one of Clark’s friends over.” Clark winced and felt his face start to heat up in embarrassment at the emphasis she put on the word friend. Lewis turned to face Maisie, completely oblivious. Thank god. 

Maisie was practically vibrating with excitement. She loved meeting new people and, apparently, embarrassing Clark as much as possible. Lewis opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get a word out, Maisie barreled into him with a hug. Clark tried to intercept her, but wasn’t fast enough to stop her before she latched onto Lewis. Lewis’s eyes widened in surprise and Clark’s anxiety spiked, wondering how Lewis would respond. 

After a beat, Lewis wrapped his arms around her with a laugh. “Well, hello there,” he said goodnaturedly. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” Clark was shocked into silence, Lewis being nice? Unheard of. He sent his mom a pleading look, hoping she would get Maisie to leave them alone. She sighed, then walked up and peeled Maisie out of Lewis’s arms. 

“Let’s go finish up the dishes and let the boys work.” Maisie protested heavily, but allowed herself to be dragged away. Clark grabbed Lewis’s arm and started pulling him towards the stairs before he even registered what he just did. Clark stopped in his tracks and looked back, afraid Lewis would hurt him. Lewis didn’t seem to even notice Clark’s hand, and was busy looking around the house. He turned back to Clark. 

“Upstairs?” he asked. Clark nodded carefully and released Lewis’s arm before leading him up to his room. Clark walked in, hopping onto his queen sized bed and moving his computer so Lewis could sit down too. When nothing happened, Clark glanced up to see Lewis leaning on his door frame with an odd look on his face. 

“We’re doing this on your bed?” he asked. Clark raised his eyebrows at him. 

“Do you see anywhere else we could?” Clark responded sarcastically. Lewis looked unsure and didn’t move from his spot in the doorway. Clark rolled his eyes and patted the bed next to him. “I promise I don't bite.” Lewis looked up at Clark and grinned. The expression sent a shiver of fear through Clark. 

“I might.” With that, Lewis strode into the room, shutting the door behind him, and flopped down unceremoniously next to Clark, who nervously inched away from him. 

“So, teach, what are we doing today?” Lewis turned to face Clark, coming almost nose to nose with him out of sheer proximity. Clark reached to his nightstand and grabbed his calculus notes. 

“I heard you have a unit test Tuesday, so we’re gonna review for that.” Clark started flipping through the notes, looking for the right place. 

“Ugh,” Lewis groaned, leaning his head against the wall behind him. 

“The entire reason you're here is to do math, stop complaining,” Clark snapped. 

“The entire reason I’m here is because I didn’t have a hockey game tonight,” he shot back. “Practically the whole school comes to watch me play, you know.”

“Gross, you’d never catch me at one of those hockey games.” Clark wrinkled his nose in distaste and Lewis looked outraged. 

“How dare you,” he growled, glaring at Clark, who just glared right back. After what felt like an eternity of each boy trying to burn the other with their gaze, Clark turned back to the notes. He didn't like taking his eyes off Lewis, but they had work to do. 

Clark started going over the notes and different practice problems in chapter 4, praying that Lewis knew enough of the previous chapters to scrape by. They didn’t have enough time to review everything if Lewis was going to pass the test. When they were a quarter of the way in, there was a knock at the bedroom door. Clark looked up from the material he was explaining with a frown. 

“Yes?” he asked, slightly irritated by the interruption. His mother cracked the door open and peeked inside. 

“Hi boys, I didn’t want to disturb you, but do you want a snack?” she said hopefully. Lewis and Clark glanced at each other, coming to a silent agreement. 

“Of course,” Lewis said, right as Clark replied with a clipped “no, we’re fine.” Lewis shot Clark a look. “We would love a snack,” he said firmly. Clark’s mom grinned triumphantly. 

“I have some cookie dough in the freezer, I’ll fire some up real quick,” she said.

“Sounds awesome, Mrs. A,” Lewis’s voice was laced with excitement at the prospect of freshly baked cookies. Clark’s mom smiled at him. 

“Please, call me Nancy,” With that, she left the room. Lewis shot Clark a triumphant grin, his perfect, white teeth gleaming in the light. Clark just rolled his eyes and returned to his lecture. Lewis settled in to listen, looking over Clark’s shoulder at the notes and interjecting with questions every once in a while. 

Soon enough, Clark’s mom pushed her way back into the room, one hand holding a plate stacked high with steaming chocolate chip cookies and the other struggling to keep a grip on two glasses of milk. 

Lewis dove out of the bed to grab the plate and glasses from her. “You’re the best, Nancy,” he said, practically foaming at the mouth for the cookies. 

“If you boys need anything else, you know where to find me.” She waved to the two of them before leaving the room once again. Lewis put his glass of milk on the floor next to his side of the bed and sat down with the plate of cookies in his lap. He then leaned completely across Clark to put Clark’s milk down on the nightstand. Clark sat perfectly still as Lewis’s weight fell across him, enveloping him in the heady scent of his cologne. His heart started to race and he prayed Lewis couldn’t feel it. After a second, which felt like an eternity, Lewis returned to his previous position on the bed and started happily munching on cookies. Clark let out a breath, and grabbed one of the cookies off the plate in Lewis’s lap. When he glanced over at Lewis, he could see the other boy messily crunching on the cookies. 

“You're getting crumbs all over my bed,” Clark groaned. Lewis shot him a cheeky grin. 

“Not my problem.” He looked Clark dead in the eyes, grabbed another cookie off the plate, and sloppily ate it. Clark rolled his eyes at the childish display of dominance and went back to explaining the next section. 

As hard as he tried to ignore it, the smell of the cookies was too enticing for him to pass up. Clark blindly reached for them, too caught up in his explanation to look. He felt his hand graze Lewis’s thigh as he reached for the cookies. Grabbing one, he quickly gobbled it down and chased it with a swallow of milk. Lewis had stopped noisily munching on cookies and Clark glanced up to see what was wrong. 

Lewis was studying him with an odd, heated look on his face and Clark could feel the tension radiating off of him. 

“What?” he asked, Lewis’s heavy stare starting to unnerve him. Lewis studied him more for a second before shaking his head and relaxing again. 

“Nothing,” he muttered. “What are derivatives again?” Clark gratefully jumped into another explanation, choosing to ignore what just happened. Lewis made no sense. Another 20 minutes flew by and they finally started nearing the end of the chapter. The cookies were long since finished and Lewis kept edging closer and closer to Clark. Everytime Lewis would move closer, Clark would move away, until he was practically falling off the bed. Finally, Clark had enough. 

“Dude, move over.” Clark was beyond annoyed. Lewis just looked at him with an innocent smile. 

“Why?” he asked. “I’m just trying to see the notes better.” Clark could tell Lewis was fucking with him. 

“Give me more space, a whole other person could fit on your side of the bed.” he complained. Lewis pretended to consider this for a second, before reaching one hand under Clark’s leg and the other behind his back and flipping him completely off the bed. Clark flailed, but could not stop himself from falling. He landed on his side, a dull pain lacing through him at the impact. 

“Ow what the fuck dude! What was that for?” Clark was fuming. How dare Lewis act like this. Clark was just trying to help him pass his stupid test. 

“You wanted space, it seemed like an easy solution.” Lewis’s face loomed above him, split into a wide grin. 

“You’re the worst,” Clark said, shaking his head. Lewis burst out laughing and allowed Clark to shove him back over to his side of the bed. Clark rubbed his side with a wince, the brunt of the impact centered above his hip. 

“Awww, poor baby,” Lewis jeered. “Do you need me to kiss it better?” Clark just glared at him. What an ass. 

“I hate you,” he said tightly. Lewis burst out into laughter again. Clark determinedly ignored him and finished explaining the last section, doing everything he could to get Lewis out of his house as fast as possible. Ten minutes later, they finished. Clark snapped his notebook shut and started shoving Lewis out of the door. 

“Time for you to go, it's been sooo fun,” Clark said sarcastically. Lewis pretended to pout.

“You don’t want me to sleepover?” he said sadly.

“Hard pass.” The two of them reached the top of the stairs and Clark went down first, Lewis following behind him. Right as Clark was about to step off the last stair, he felt a shove from behind. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he just barely stopped himself from face planting on the floor. Clark spun around, glaring at Lewis. Such an insufferable, annoying little BITCH. Lewis gave Clark a charming smile, breezing past him on the way to the door. He started walking out and Clark ran to the door, calling to him. 

“I hope you trip and fall on the way to your car,” he spat. Lewis stopped in the middle of the walkway and spun around, a smirk dancing across his face. 

“Those are big words from someone whose face is looking HIGHLY punchable right now.” Lewis’s words were filled with challenge, and he took a menacing step towards Clark. Clark just crossed his arms and stared right back.

“You know what, if you get higher than an 80 on the test Tuesday, I'll let you do anything you want to me, no complaints.” He could hear a tiny voice in his head shouting that this was a terrible idea, but chose to ignore it. There was no way Lewis was going to do that well. 

“It's a deal,” Lewis said, his smile wide and hungry. He reached his hand out to Clark, who gripped it firmly and shook it once before letting go. Lewis gave Clark one last look before calmly walking down the path, hopping into his car, and driving off into the night. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clark laid on his bed later that night, staring blankly up at his ceiling. Thoughts of Lewis swirled around in his head, the scent of his cologne still lingering in the air. ‘I don’t understand him. One minute he’s all friendly and nice, and the next he’s going out of his way to torture me. What kind of neurotic psychopath does shit like that? There’s no way he’s going to pass that test, right? I’m so fucked if he does. And why the hell does my room still smell like him. It’s driving me crazy.’ No matter how hard he tried, sleep eluded him. He glanced over at his phone, it was 11:13. Seven hours until he had to be up for school. As he was staring at his phone, it lit up with an incoming call. Alessandra. He hit the accept button and brought the phone up to his ear. “Hello?” 

“Ok, so I need a favor,” Alessandra’s voice rang in his ear, thick with a Spanish accent. Clark groaned, her favors never ended up well for him. “Promise you won't say no?” she asked hopefully.

“Depends what it is,” Clark sighed, skeptical of whatever wild proposition she had come up with. 

“I need you to come with me to the hockey game tomorrow night. Jackson wants me to go, but I don't want to go alone. Sports are soooo boring if you don't have a friend to objectify the players with,” she pleaded. It was a fair point, neither of them liked watching sports but loved debating who on the teams were most attractive. Clark would do anything and everything for her, but wanted to make her work for it. 

“Ugh, I was going to stay home tomorrow night,” he said. 

“Pleaseeee, I- hang on a sec,” whatever she was saying was cut off as she took the phone away from her face. Clark could hear the faint sounds of her yelling to someone in rapid-fire Spanish. Soon, her voice came through the phone once again. “Anyways, I know for a fact you don't have anything better to do.” Again, fair point, but ouch. 

“Are you saying watching The Big Bang Theory is not important? I'm offended,” he said with mock seriousness. 

“Hey, no one said that,” she protested. “C’mon it'll be fun. I'll love you forever.”

“Gasp, you don't already love me forever?” Clark demanded. 

“I'll doubly love you forever,” she amended. “Please, it’s going to be great.”

“Ugh, I guess.” Clark gave in with a heavy, dramatic sigh. 

“YES,” her triumph was palpable through the phone. “Ok, I'm going to hang up before my parents can yell at me again for being too loud and before you change your mind.

Bye!” Clark inhaled, about to return her goodbye when the call cut off. Sighing, he put the phone back on his bedside table and tried once again to fall asleep.


	5. Lewis POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hockey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI I know nothing about hockey so just ignore it if things are wrong

A tense silence fell over the hockey rink as the buzzing crowd sat forwards in their seats, their eyes wide and breath caught in their throats. Lewis stood in the faceoff circle, alone with a medium-sized boy who stared at him through the glass of his helmet. As Lewis calmly returned his stare, he saw a drop of sweat trailing down his opponent’s face and heard his breath quicken in the heavy silence. When the referee drew his whistle up to his mouth, Lewis bent his knees and set his stick firmly in the middle of the circle, to the right of the other boy’s. He took a deep breath before locking his gaze on the puck resting on the edge of the ref’s hand. Lewis felt more than he saw the man’s cheeks fill to the brim with air and his grip on his hockey stick tightened.

FWEET. The piercing sound of the whistle catapulted Lewis’s body into action and he quickly tapped the falling puck with his stick, pushing it backwards to his team. It was as if the world around Lewis unfroze suddenly and his teammates skated past him with the puck and the crowd began cheering loudly. Spurred forward by shouts of his name, Lewis raced down the ice to catch up with his team as they entered the offensive zone. He took up his position to the right of the goal as his team started passing the puck among themselves, waiting for an opportunity. 

The opposing team was skating in circles to chase the puck like dogs chasing their tails. One of their defensemen began drifting towards the opposite corner where the puck was stuck, and when Lewis’s right-winger managed to get free and skate into the middle of the ice, the kid wasn’t able to get back into his position.

“Here! Asher to your left,” Lewis yelled, raising his voice to carry over the hum of the crowd and the scrapes of skates carving into the thick ice. Asher’s head shot up and he passed the puck across the goal to Lewis as soon as his eyes locked on his location. The puck hit Lewis’s stick, which he drew back to absorb the impact and turned to face the net. The goalie had pushed off the opposite post to try to cover Lewis’s side, but he was too late. Lewis chipped the puck into the air, and everyone in the rink watched as it sailed up and into the top right corner of the net. 

“Lewis! Lewis! Lewis!” the crowd chanted as Lewis did a victory lap around the ice, high fiving his teammates as he passed them. When he reached his team’s bench, he skidded to a stop, his sharp skates crushing the top layer of ice into milky-white snow, and hopped up onto the rubber mat that lined the floor of the bench. He sat down and leaned back to catch his breath as the people next to him slapped him on the back and congratulated him. 

As the game continued, Lewis got many chances to score, but every time he shot the puck, the goalie either tipped it out of the way or it hit one of the posts. It was nearing the end of the second period and Lewis was out with his starting lineup, when Oliver, one of his defensemen, stole the puck from the other team and passed it up to Lewis. Lewis shot up the rink towards the offensive zone with Asher to his left. Only one of the other team’s defensemen had made it back to their side before them, and they easily got around him by doing a give and go. As Lewis skated closer to the goalie, he couldn’t find an open spot in the net to aim at, so he skated past the goalie and spun quickly around the net, using his stick to tuck the puck around the post and slide it into the net. 

The crowd erupted in cheers once again as the buzzer went off, signaling the end of the second period. Lewis took his time skating over to the bench, scanning the crowd as he went to see who had come. He almost tripped, his skates crossing over each other, when he saw a mass of strawberry-blonde hair peeking over the crowd. ‘He said that he wasn’t going to come,’ Lewis thought. Shaking off his confusion, Lewis hurried back to his teammates, but as his coach droned on and on about strategies, Lewis couldn’t stop himself from glancing up into the stands a few times to make sure that Clark had really come to his game and that his mind wasn’t just playing tricks on him. 

It felt like only seconds had gone by before his coach was ushering him back onto the ice and he made his way to the center circle, forcing himself not to look at Clark as everyone around him got ready to resume the game. When the ref dropped the puck, Lewis took a second to react and just barely got to it before the boy across from him. As soon as the puck reached Asher’s stick behind Lewis, he heard his coach call out from the bench.

“Number 5! Number 5!” he shouted. Lewis felt trapped as he stood in the center circle and began to panic as Asher skated across the ice and the winger who had been on Lewis’s left skated forward. ‘I thought we only had four plays?!? Fuck,’ Lewis cursed mentally as Asher skated past him, glancing at him in confusion when he didn’t move. Lewis tried to force his body forward, but his skates were stuck to the ice, his limbs leaden, and nothing he did worked. He finally unfroze after Asher had lost the puck and skated into their defensive end to stop the other team from scoring.

When Lewis got off the ice a moment later, his coach headed straight to him, stepping over water bottles and helmets.

“What the hell was that Lewis?” he asked, his voice full of anger.

“I don’t know Coach,” Lewis responded. “I’m sorry. I’ll get it right next time.”

“You better,” his coach said. Lewis nodded and turned away to grab his water, yanking his gaze down when it locked on Clark’s face, whose cheeks were bright red in the cold. He squeezed the Gatorade bottle, coughing as the stream of water hit the back of his throat, and then poured some into his sweaty hair, shaking his head to make the water droplets fly everywhere. Lewis’s coach kept him on the bench for the next ten minutes, letting the other centers play double shifts to cover for him. As the time passed, Lewis refused to look at Clark, taking deep breaths to keep himself from getting impatient. 

When his coach finally came over to him and told him to get back on the ice, Lewis was calm and his mind was cleared of any thoughts about Clark. Lewis gained confidence as he skated, his passes always reaching his teammates and the plays his coach called out coming back to him automatically. Every time the puck came to him, he managed to get around multiple players from the other team and when his coach took him off the ice to rest, he was always back on within a minute. 

There were three minutes left in the game when everything went to shit. Lewis was skating through the neutral zone and looked up to see who was around him. His gaze passed over Asher, who was next to him on his left, and his right-winger, Jackson, who was a few feet in front of him. Just as he was finishing his scan, his eyes were drawn up by a loud cheer from the crowd, and his gaze locked immediately on Clark. In the split second it took him to realize who he was looking at and pull his gaze away, a skater from the other team had reached him and stolen the puck.

Swearing under his breath, Lewis spun around to chase after him. His defense had drifted too far up the ice, overconfident in Lewis’s abilities, and the player was on his own in their defensive end. Pushing himself as fast as he could, Lewis got behind the player, but couldn’t get in front of him to steal the puck back. As the boy got closer and closer to Lewis’s goalie, he knew that he would have no choice but to foul him. When the player drew back his stick to shoot, Lewis reached forward, grabbing onto the back of his jersey and pulling him backward. As the boy fell backward, his stick flailed wildly and connected with the puck, sending it bouncing forward, under the goalie’s arm and into the back of the net. 

FWEET! The ref blew his whistle and skated between the two boys before either could throw a punch in the heat of the moment. Once he knew that they wouldn’t do anything, he turned to Lewis, a disapproving look on his face.

“That was very unsportsmanlike son,” he said. “Come with me, you’re going straight to the penalty box.” As Lewis skated slowly behind him, his head hung in shame, the other ref addressed the crowd.

“That’s a goal for Columbus High School making the game 2-1 for Worth County High. We also have a two minute penalty for holding by number 66 Lewis Yates, giving Columbus a power play.”

When Lewis reached the penalty box, he stepped reluctantly inside it and sat down, placing his head in his hands. He could hear boos from the crowd and the ref blowing his whistle for the faceoff, but he didn’t look up, too embarrassed. ‘I can’t believe I let that happen,’ he thought. ‘Wait no. This is Clark’s fault; he said he wasn’t going to come and when he did it surprised me. I should punch him the next time I see him for making me play so badly.’ As the thought of punching Clark got more appealing by the second, Lewis remembered the deal they had made and promised himself that he would study extra hard for his test so that he could see the blood gush down Clark’s face after he punched him. 

The decision improved his dismal mood, and he looked back up to watch the game. The opposing team had the puck and were passing it around, obviously looking for an opportunity. Lewis sucked in a breath when one player took a shot, but was able to let it out when it went wide. Checking the scoreboard, he saw that there were only 10 seconds left in his penalty, so he stood up to be ready when the door was opened. He was hopping up and down to warm up his muscles when Asher fell down trying to steal the puck and a player from the other team skated around him and took a shot. Lewis felt the world slow down around him as he watched the puck fly through the air, bouncing off the top of the goalie’s shoulder and into the net.

“Fuck,” Lewis swore loudly, unable to stop himself. They had scored two goals, tying the game, all because Lewis got distracted for one second. The ref came over to let him out of the penalty box as the other ref announced the goal and informed everyone that his coach had called for a time out. Lewis hurried over to his bench to hear what his coach had to say, and his heart sank when he saw the furious expression on his face.

“Lewis what’s wrong with you today,” he asked, anger lacing his every word.

“I’m sorry coach. Please let me go back out there and try to score,” Lewis begged.

“I don’t think so son,” his coach said. “I can’t trust you today.”

“Please. I promise I won’t let you down.” 

His coach stared at him for a minute before he responded.

“Fine. But if you do something stupid again, you’re benched for the rest of the season.”

The rest of Lewis’s teammates gasped, shocked by their coach’s harshness, but Lewis just nodded. He knew that he wasn’t going to mess up again.

When the ref blew the whistle to end the time out, Lewis skated out with his team, gathering in the middle with Asher and Jackson to decide on a play before spreading out to their positions. Lewis glided into the center faceoff circle one last time, breathing deeply and setting a determined expression on his face.

The ref blew his whistle once more and Lewis jerked into motion, hitting the puck back so that it landed right in Asher’s stick. He bolted forward, reaching his stick out to harness the puck as Asher hit it past him. He weaved around the other team’s players, zigzagging back and forth and spinning out of the way until it was just him and the goalie. He stared straight into the boy’s eyes, tapping the puck back and forth as he approached. Once he was a mere foot in front of the goalie, he faked one way, making the goalie slide to the left, before tapping the puck lightly into the bottom right corner.

The buzzer went off as the puck hit the back of the net and the crowd erupted in cheers. When Lewis looked up, he saw Clark’s smiling face as he jumped up and down and cheered along with everybody else. Lewis smirked when Clark noticed his gaze and ducked his head down in embarrassment. He lost sight of Clark when his teammates finally reached him, screaming all around him and jumping onto his back. 

“That was amazing!!” Asher yelled in Lewis’s ear. “We’re definitely having a party tonight.” At his words, a second wave of cheers rose up among the players and they skated off the ice in a big huddle. When they reached the locker room, they all changed quickly, eager to be out of the sweat-filled room. After pulling on his team hoodie and doing a few stretches, Lewis hurried out of the room after his team.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later that night, Lewis stood in the living room of Asher’s house, watching his teammates grind against girls to the beat of the loud music, a cup of water in his hand. As they were leaving the rink after the game, Asher had basically invited their entire school over to his house with the promise of music and alcohol. Of course, everyone showed up and the mass of bodies filling up every room in the house made the air suffocatingly hot.

Lewis raised his cup to his lips to take a sip of water when he felt a hand pull on his arm. Looking over, he saw a short blond girl leaning her weight against him and staring up at him, a dazed look in her eyes.

“Come dance with me handsome,” she said, obviously attempting to sound sexy but it was about as appealing to Lewis as having sex with an elderly elephant. 

“No thanks,” Lewis said, pulling his arm out of her grasp and stepping sideways so that she stumbled at the loss of support.

“Are you sure?” she asked, trying to grab onto Lewis again but failing. “At least come get a drink with me.”

“I don’t drink,” Lewis responded. 

“You’re so lame,” she whined.

“No, I just care about my future. Unlike you.”

The girl glared at him and stalked away, walking straight to the dance floor where she found a boy willing to dance, no, grind disgustingly with her. Lewis was about to look away when he saw who she was dancing with. ‘What the hell,’ he thought as the girl pulled Clark into the middle of the dance floor. He had taken a step towards them to stop what was happening when he remembered that he didn’t care. Pulling his gaze away from the pair, he scanned the room until he located Jackson standing in the corner.

Lewis made his way over to and stopped beside him, staying silent when he saw that Jackson was staring at somebody. He followed his friend’s gaze to a short tan girl with curly jet black hair, who was spinning around the floor without a care in the world.

“Who is she?” Lewis asked, making Jackson jump in surprise when he realized that Lewis was standing right behind him.

“What the hell man,” Jackson said before remembering that Lewis had asked a question. “Oh, she goes to our school. We were talking earlier and I think she likes me.”

“Well if you want to do anything with her tonight, you better get over there,” Lewis responded. Jackson nodded, but didn’t move.

“What if she doesn’t want to be with me though?” he asked. Lewis snorted in disbelief.

“A girl not liking you. Are you out of your mind?”

“You’re too nice Lewis,” Jackson said, but still didn’t move towards the girl.

“Come on man. Just go. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

“She could reject me.”

“And if she does just get drunk and sleep with somebody else. You’re at a party there are lots of options,” Lewis said and shoved Jackson forward into the crowd of people. He looked back to glare at him, before he turned and headed off towards the girl. Lewis smiled when he saw them talking and laughing. Jackson said something that had the girl nodding along with a gleam of excitement on her face before he grabbed her hand and they ran off towards the bedrooms.

When Lewis couldn’t see them anymore, he turned his gaze back to the dancers and his eyes immediately found Clark. He was with someone else now, a tall boy who had his hands around Clark’s waist and was grinding against his back. Lewis felt something inside him simmer with rage when he saw Clark tilt his head backwards to smile up at the other boy. As Lewis watched, the boy leaned down to whisper something in Clark's ear that made him pull away and snap at the boy. Lewis frowned when Clark tried to walk away and the boy pulled him back against him, hugging him tight even as Clark tried to squirm away.

Before Lewis could register what he was doing, he was next to the pair pulling Clark away from the boy.

“What the hell man?” the boy asked, trying to grab Clark again. Lewis stepped in his way, pushing Clark behind him as he glared at the boy.

“Go away, he obviously doesn’t want to be with you,” Lewis said. The boy growled, his hands curling into fists as he stepped closer to Lewis.

“We were just having some fun,” he said. “Right Clark?”

“No we weren’t. I asked you to stop and you didn’t,” Clark said quietly from behind Lewis.

“He’s obviously drunk and just being stupid. It’s not like we haven’t slept together before. Why don’t you just leave this is between us,” he said to Lewis trying to step around him to get to Clark.

“No,” Lewis said. “Get out of here.”

“You’re such a bitch,” the boy said to Clark, grabbing a drink out of the hand of the person next to him and throwing it on Clark as he walked away. Clark yelped as the alcohol splashed all over his sweatshirt, soaking it. 

“Do you need help cleaning up?” Lewis asked hesitantly.

“Um, no, I'll be fine. I just need to find my friend so that she can take me home,” Clark said, standing on his tiptoes to look around the crowd. After a minute, he lowered himself back down, looking dejected.

“Oh fuck,” Clark said. “I forgot. She’s trying to hook up with someone on your team. Jackson I think.”

“That was your friend?” Lewis asked.

“Yeah. Hey! Don’t look so surprised. I have friends.”

“She’s just so different than you,” Lewis said. “She’s actually confident.”

“You’re soooo mean,” Clark slurred and when Lewis looked closely at him, he realized that Clark was swaying on his feet.

“You’re drunk,” Lewis stated.

“No I’m not,” Clark protested, trying to punch Lewis in the arm, but missing and stumbling over his own feet. Lewis reached out to stabilize him and thought for a moment before making a decision.

“Come on. I’m taking you home,” he said and grabbed Clark’s arm to pull him towards the door.

“Stop it,” Clark said, snatching his arm away. “I can get home myself.”

“Really?” Lewis questioned. “How?”

“U-um, I’ll just drive myself,” he said, smiling as if he’d just solved the hardest math problem in the world. Lewis sighed at the boy’s stupidity before responding.

“You can barely walk. How do you think you’ll be able to drive.”

“Oh,” Clark said. “I guess you’re right. My mom would kill me if I drove drunk.”

“I’ve only met her once, but she definitely seems like she would,” Lewis agreed. “Now come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Wait. Why aren’t you drunk too?” Clark asked.

“I’m not about to ruin my chances for a hockey scholarship by being caught drinking underage,” Lewis explained. 

“Oh that makes sense. Ok I’ll come with you. Lemme just get this gross sweatshirt off first. I can’t believe that Johnathan did that,” Clark said and pulled the sweatshirt over his head. Lewis gulped when the motion hiked up Clark’s shirt, exposing a thin line of pale white skin. Yanking his gaze away, Lewis tried to remember what Clark had been talking about.

“Oh right that guy,” he said. “How did you know him anyways?”

“He, um, used to be my boyfriend,” Clark said, his voice muffled as he struggled to pull the sweatshirt over his head. When he finally got it off, he dropped it on the ground and started to walk towards the door. Lewis rolled his eyes and bent down to snatch the discarded sweatshirt of the floor before hurrying to catch up with Clark.

“You’re gay?” Lewis asked. Clark stopped and stared at him in confusion.

“Um yeah. Everybody knows that though it’s really obvious,” Clark said.

“It is?”

“Yeah,” Clark said. “Wait you didn’t know?”

“No, how would I have?” Clark rolled his eyes, exasperated with Lewis’s apparent obliviousness. 

“I literally have a pride flag hanging in front of my house.”

“You do?”

“YES”

“I didn’t see one.”

“It is literally right next to the door.”

“Oh, um. It must have been hidden because of the darkness,” Lewis mumbled.

“No, I think you’re just stupid,” Clark stated. Lewis glared down at the smiling boy and then turned to continue making his way out of the house. He heard Clark run to catch up with him, but didn’t speak to him until they were outside of the house and he noticed that Clark was shivering.

“Are you cold?” Lewis asked.

“No-o, I-I’m f-fine,” Clark said, his chattering teeth making him stutter over every word. 

“You’re obviously not,” Lewis said. “Here, put on my hoodie.” He pulled the hoodie in question over his head and held it out to Clark, who grabbed it hesitantly.

“But won’t you be cold?” he said quietly, glancing down at the warm hoodie with an expression of desperation on his face.

“No, I was burning up there. I’ll be fine. Just put it on all ready,” Lewis said and with the reassurance, Clark immediately put the hoodie on, sighing and relaxing into it as it quickly started to warm up his cold body.

“Thank you,” Clark said quietly.

“Let’s just go,” Lewis said, glancing around in a belated attempt to make sure that nobody had seen him do something nice for Clark. He walked to his car with Clark next to him in silence and they were in the car listening to music before Clark started talking again.

“Wait. How do you know where I live?” he asked.

“I was at your house yesterday for tutoring. You gave me your address, remember?” Lewis responded.

“Oh right,” Clark said. “Oh yeah I remember that. You were so mean. Wanting to punch people isn’t good.” 

“Sorry?” Lewis said questioningly.

“It’s ok. I know you didn’t mean it,” Clark stated confidently. Outraged, Lewis opened his mouth to protest, but when he looked over at Clark, he saw that he had slouched against the window and was dead asleep.

“Idiot,” Lewis muttered, but remained quiet so that he wouldn’t wake Clark up and did his best to avoid the potholes in the road. When he reached Clark's house, he pulled into the driveway and was about to shake him away so that he could get inside when he saw how peaceful the boy looked. Every line on his face that was usually tense when he was awake was relaxed and Lewis couldn’t find it in himself to disturb Clark’s rest.

He got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side, opening the door and carefully lifting Clark into his arms. ‘Wow. He’s so light,’ Lewis thought as he carried him to the front door. As he approached it, he looked to the side and saw the giant pride flag hanging right next to the door. Lewis cursed himself for not noticing it the first time he had come over and letting Clark embarrass him because of it.

When he reached the front door, he knocked, not wanting to wake up Maisie if she was already asleep. He heard someone hurrying to the door and it was flung open.   
“Oh my god! What happened to him?” Nancy asked frantically.

“Don’t worry he’s just asleep,” Lewis said. “There was a party after the hockey game tonight and he had too much to drink.”  
“Oh thank god,” she said. “I was worried that he was dead.”

“No, he’s fine Nancy,” Lewis reassured her. “Do you want me to bring him up to his bed?”

“That would be amazing. Thank you Lewis, you’re so good to him,” Nancy said. Lewis frowned, wondering what she meant by that, but shrugged it off and moved past her into the house. He carried Clark up the stairs, tiptoeing down the dark hallway to his room and pushing the door open. When he reached the bed, he placed the small boy down and was about to walk out when he hesitated and then turned back to take off Clark’s shoes and pull his blankets up to his chin. He stepped back and stared down at the stepping boy for a moment, taking in his flushed face and messy hair splayed across the pillow, before shaking himself and walking out of the room.

He handed Clark’s dirty sweatshirt to Nancy on his way out, who thanked him again, and was in his car driving away when he realized that Clark still had his hoodie on.


	6. Clark POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sweatshirt

Pain. Vicious, head throbbing, pain ripped Clark out of unconsciousness. He groaned, rolling over and clutching his head. It felt like a thousand needles were being shoved into his scalp and lodged in his brain. Clark could barely form coherent thoughts between the bursts of agony, but managed to sit up to try and get some water. Big mistake. The second he sat up a violent wave of nausea rocked through his body. Hurtling out of bed, he dashed across the hall and threw open the bathroom door. 

Clark fell to his knees, grabbing desperately at the rim of the toilet bowl. He could feel the vomit rising into his throat as another wave of nausea overtook him. Heaving violently, Clark vomited into the bowl. The disgusting fluid burned his throat and left a terrible taste in his mouth. ‘Good god, WHY did I have to drink so much last night.’ Clark knew he was a lightweight apparently that knowledge slipped his mind at the party. ‘There must have been a reason I drank so much. I can’t remember anything, fuck.’ Clark’s memories were a foggy haze of pulsing music, sweaty bodies, and vibrant lights. Suddenly, a person’s face pushed through the fog. Jonathan. Clark bent over the toilet and vomited again. 

His relationship with Jonathan had been doomed from the start. Back in sophomore year, he transferred to Clark’s school. They had a few classes together, and Johnny seemed to take an interest in him. Clark had never had anyone give him any sort of romantic attention, and he relished it. When Johnny asked him out, he figured why not. Almost immediately, Johnathan got super possessive of Clark. He wouldn’t let Clark talk to other people and always wanted to know where he was. He even went as far as trying to keep him away from Alessandra. That was their first big argument, and after that Alessandra begged Clark on multiple occasions to leave him. Even though the red flags were staring him in the face, Clark ignored them, just happy to have someone care about him.

They hit rock bottom that summer. Jonathan had been out drinking with his friends, and when he showed up at Clark’s door that night, he got really handsy with him and kept trying to take his clothes off. Clark shoved him away and told him to leave, but Johnny wouldn’t go away. He grabbed Clark and trapped him against the wall of his house, refusing to budge no matter how much Clark shoved and screamed at him. All of a sudden, Jonathan was ripped off of him, and standing behind him was Clark’s mother.   
Clark had never seen his mother angry before. It just wasn’t in her nature. But the burning rage in her eyes could have melted glaciers. She grabbed Johnathan by the back of his shirt, dragged him to the car that was sloppily parked in front of their house, and shoved him in. 

“Stay the HELL away from my son, you piece of shit!” she yelled, slamming the car door in his face. She stormed back over to where Clark had been leaning against the house, unable to control his shaking. Wrapping her arms around him, she guided him inside as Johnathan sped off into the night. They sat down on their worn couch and she pulled Clark into a tight hug. She hadn’t held him like that since he was a child. He just clung onto her and sobbed into her arms until he fell asleep. 

In the days following, Jonathan wouldn’t leave him alone, convinced Clark would come back to him. He kept trying to text and call Clark, even going so far as to try to visit his house, but was chased off by a furious Alessandra. She barely left Clark’s side after the breakup, always there to cheer him up, comfort him when he slipped into a pit of despair, and yell at him when his common sense went out the door and was inclined to call Jonathan back. 

Just thinking about Johnathan made Clark so much more nauseous then he had been before. He prayed to all the gods he didn't believe in that nothing happened between them. Cursing his patchy memory, Clark got off the floor, flushed the toilet, and rinsed out his mouth. He opened the door, and almost ran straight into his mother.   
Guilt flooded Clark at the thought of her finding out that he had been drinking. 

“Hey, mom.” His voice sounded rough and pained. 

“Are you hungover? I heard you throw up.” Damn it. He knew he wouldn’t be able to lie to her, even if he didn’t feel like shit. Clark stared at the floor, refusing to look her in the eyes. 

“Yes,” he mumbled. 

“Alright,” her voice didn’t sound angry or disappointed and Clark looked up in confusion. “I have some medicine that will help you feel better, hang on.” She breezed past Clark into the bathroom, sorting through their medicine cabinet before she came across the bottles she was looking for. Popping the caps, she shook out a few of the pills with a rattle and handed them to Clark. He took them numbly. 

“You’re not… mad?” he asked. She smiled at him.

“Of course not, honey. You’re 18 and I’d much rather you learn your limits when I’m around to help you with the consequences.” A wave of gratitude rushed through Clark. Nothing could begin to explain how much he loved his mother. Clark gratefully took the pills she was offering and downed them with some water from the bathroom sink. He then wrapped his mother in a hug. 

“Thanks, mom. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She hugged him tightly before walking back down the hall. Before she went down the stairs, she turned back to look at him. 

“Oh, tell Lewis I’m grateful he took care of you last night,” she said brightly, disappearing down the stairs with a wink. Clark stood in stunned silence. Lewis? Glancing down at himself for the first time, Clark realized he was drowning in a massive grey hoodie with a hockey logo on the front. ‘Oh, god.’ Deciding he would think about it later when his head wasn’t trying to murder him, Clark trudged back into his room and collapsed on his bed. Enveloped in warmth and a comforting scent his tired mind couldn’t place, sleep claimed him quickly. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An incessant pounding at his door Monday morning tore Clark from the pleasant dream he was having. Groggily, he threw off his covers and shivered when the chilled air bit at him. He had fallen asleep last night in only his boxers; his mother was a big fan of cranking up the heat as high as it could go at night then turning it way down in the morning to help her wake up.

“Clark, get up! You’re gonna to be late for school.” His mother’s voice was muffled as it traveled through the door. Clark glanced at the clock at his bedside table, it was 7:20. SHIT. 

“I’m up!” he yelled to his mom. The pounding at his door stopped and he sprang into action. He shoved his computer and notebooks in his bag, threw on a pair of pants, and put on a random sweatshirt that was hanging by his door. Dashing down his stairs, Clark flew by his mother and sister having breakfast in the kitchen and straight out the door. 

The air was pretty cold, but the large sweatshirt he had on and practically running to school warmed him right up. As he was dashing through the halls, people kept throwing him funny looks. Several kids stopped outright when they saw him, confused expressions plastered on their faces before they turned to whisper to their friends. Clark ignored them and flew into his first class at 7:29, just barely making it before the bell. Everyone in the class stared at him as he entered, but he ignored them and plopped down gratefully in his seat next to Alessandra in the back of the class. She was watching him with a goofy look on her face. 

“What?” Clark asked, confused. Alessandra opened her mouth to respond but before she could get a word in, their history teacher launched into her lecture on the Russian Revolution. Alessandra shot him another amused look before focusing on the teacher. 

The class dragged by painfully, and once their teacher finished the lecture, she let them work independently on an essay she assigned. People had been shooting Clark weird looks all class and he could not for the life of him figure out why. 

“Psst,” Clark hissed. “Alessandra, what the hell is wrong with everyone today?” Alessandra looked up from her writing. 

“Do you... do you really not know?” she said incredulously. Clark was beyond confused. 

“No, what is it?”

“Dude, look at what you're wearing,” she said with a quiet chuckle. Clark glanced down at his clothes. Was there a stain or something he didn't know about? Alessandra rolled her eyes at him. “Who’s sweatshirt is that, dumbass?” Clark’s eyes widened. Oh god. Oh no. Displayed proudly in the top right corner, staring him in the face, was Worth County High’s hockey team logo. Clark twisted in his seat to try and see the back of the hoodie, which was covered by a giant 66. 

Clark buried his face in his hands, which were, admittedly, covered by the incredibly long sleeves of the grey hoodie. Lewis’s hoodie. Alessandra started laughing at him. 

“I woke up late and it was the first thing I grabbed!” Clark protested, desperate to explain himself. Alessandra just started laughing harder, causing some of the other kids in the class to turn around and stare at them. “Oh god, Lewis is actually going to murder me. I’m a dead man!” As Clark’s panic mounted, Alessandra just kept laughing harder and harder at him, tears forming at the corner of her eyes. “This isn’t funny!” Clark protested. “When I die, I’m going to come back and haunt you for being such a terrible friend.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” Alessandra said, shaking her head to try to collect herself. “It's just, after the party, I went looking for you and when I couldn’t find you, I figured you just went home. I didn’t realize you went home with Lewis fucking Yates.” She burst into another fit of giggles. Clark was going to die. Right there on the spot. 

“It’s not like that!” To be fair, Clark couldn’t really remember what it was like. His memory had started filling as the weekend passed, but he couldn’t conjure up much more than running into Johnathan, Lewis showing up, and then getting into Lewis’s car. He did have the vague memory of shivering, and Lewis handing him something. After that, everything was blank. 

“Well, why do you have his sweatshirt then?” she stated, as if it was a glaringly obvious sign something was going on between them. 

“I was cold,” Clark said tightly. “He was being nice.” 

“Lewis Yates and nice have never, ever been used in the same sentence,” Alessandra replied. Clark rolled his eyes but was saved from having to respond by the loud ring of the bell. As he started packing his things up, he realized his impending doom and spun to look at Alessandra, eyes wide. 

“I have chem next,” Clark said, fear leaking into his voice. “I’m so fucked.” Alessandra just cackled as they left the room.

“I can’t wait to go to your funeral. I look so good in black.” With that, she walked in the opposite direction, dark curls bouncing behind her, and disappeared around the corner. 

Clark sighed and forced himself to walk towards the chemistry classroom. It was only one hallway down from his history class so he was there all too soon. Luckily, Lewis hadn’t arrived yet. Clark shuffled into the class, keeping his head down and not meeting anyone’s eyes when they noticed him. Sinking deep into his chair, Clark wished desperately that he could just disappear. 

The bell signifying the end of passing time rang and Lewis had still not arrived. Clark let out a breath, maybe he was absent today. The tension started to leave his body. Ignoring the other kids was easy. He could survive this disaster if Lewis wasn’t there to find out what he had done.

Clark had started to get his notebook out when he heard something. Loud footsteps and rowdy yelling echoed through the empty halls, getting louder by the second. Clark straightened in his seat, fear coursing through his veins. Sure enough, Lewis strode into the room after waving his friends goodbye. Mr. Jefferson shot him a look, but didn’t say anything about his tardiness. Every nerve in Clark’s body stood on end and he sat perfectly still as Lewis turned to go to his seat. Time seemed to slow down as Lewis’s eyes met Clark’s, then dipped down and took in what he was wearing. Lewis stopped dead in his tracks, shock, anger, and another emotion Clark couldn’t place warring across his face. 

“Lewis, sit down so we can get started.” Mr. Jefferson sounded impatient. Lewis didn’t take his eyes off of Clark as he stalked to his seat. Clark could sense the anger radiating off Lewis and could feel the other boy’s eyes burning into the back of his head. Clark felt like a deer trapped in headlights, unable to move or even think with the other boy’s attention locked solely on him. Mr. Jefferson began his usual passionate speech about the day’s lesson, but Clark could barely hear him over the swirl of thoughts pounding in his head. _‘What is Lewis going to do to me? He’s so mad. I’m quite literally going to die. He’s beat up kids for so much less, I’m absolutely screwed. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. Why the hell did he give me this god damn sweatshirt in the first place? And WHY WON’T PEOPLE STOP STARING AT ME. Jesus christ, they are NOT helping the situation.’ ___

__“Clark?” Mr. Jefferson’s voice startled him out of his raging fears. Clark blinked a few times before focusing on the teacher._ _

__“Sorry, what?” Clark’s face heated up. He prayed Mr. Jefferson wouldn’t ask him anything too hard because he had no idea what they had been talking about all class._ _

__“Homework?” Mr. Jefferson held out his hand. Clark let out a relieved breath and handed in his work. Mr. Jefferson walked by and asked Lewis for his, and Clark made the mistake of glancing back at them. Even as he handed in his homework, Lewis was still glaring at him. His dark eyes were filled with burning hatred that had Clark quickly averting his gaze, face turning red._ _

__Clark toughed out the rest of the class, doing his best to ignore Lewis. When the bell rang, Clark took his time putting his things in his bag, hoping Lewis would leave ahead of him. Watching him out of the corner of his eye, Clark saw Lewis throwing his notebook forcefully in his bag and storming out of the room. Letting out a breath, Clark picked up his things and left as well, hoping to reach his next class before Lewis could find him._ _

__Glancing both ways down the hall to make sure the path was clear, Clark ducked into the stream of kids rushing to their classes. He headed for the stairwell; he only had to get up the stairs and down the hall and he would be safe in his English class. Reaching the first step, Clark put his foot out before something grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt and violently yanked him underneath the stairwell and away from prying eyes._ _

__Clark’s heart raced and he spun around, coming face to face with none other than Lewis Yates. Clark’s fear spiked as he looked up at the fuming boy, and tried to back away from him only to back up directly into the wall. Lewis took a menacing step forwards._ _

__“Take it off,” he growled. Clark froze, face heating up._ _

__“I can't,” he mumbled, wanting to look away but afraid of taking his eyes off of the other boy. His lack of grabbing a shirt this morning was really coming back to bite him in the ass._ _

__“What do you mean you can't?” Lewis said, voice rising. “I said take. It. Off.” The anger lacing through his words sent shivers of fear through Clark. He was trapped, and so utterly screwed. When he didn’t move to take off the sweatshirt, Lewis closed the distance between them. He reached out and slid his hands under the hem of the sweatshirt, starting to pull it over Clark’s head. Clark’s breath caught and he shuddered at the feeling of Lewis’s hands skimming across his bare chest._ _

__“Hey!” he yelped. Lewis’s eyes widened and he dropped the hoodie, which he had pulled up enough to see the pale skin of Clark’s abdomen. He stepped back quickly, and Clark could swear Lewis’s cheeks turned pink in the dim light._ _

__“Are you... not wearing anything else underneath?” he said, hands fidgeting at his sides. Clark glared at him._ _

__“I woke up late this morning and grabbed it accidentally. I didn't even have time to eat breakfast.” His stomach grumbled loudly in agreement. Lewis was so annoying. He didn’t want to keep the sweatshirt, no matter how comfortable it was, but he had no choice. Lewis seemed to realize the predicament as well and stepped back again, distancing himself from Clark. “You can stop by my house later and pick it up,” Clark said. Lewis met Clark’s eyes again, gaze sharpening when he saw Clark’s scowl._ _

__“Fine,” he spat._ _

__“Fine,” Clark repeated, crossing his arms. Neither of them moved, both just glaring deep into the other’s eyes. Suddenly, the bell went off, startling them out of their staring contest. Lewis turned to leave before stopping in his tracks, fighting with himself. Clark stared at his back in confusion, waiting. Lewis shook his head before reaching into his backpack and rummaging through it for something. He turned around just long enough to throw something at Clark. Clark fumbled as the object flew at him, just barely catching it before it could fall onto the floor. Lewis met Clark’s wide eyes over his shoulder one last time before disappearing off to his class. Clark could only stare numbly after him, a strange rush of gratitude and something else he didn’t want to think about going through his body as he unwrapped and bit into the protein bar._ _

__\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_ _

__The rest of the day passed by fairly quickly. Clark did his best to ignore everyone’s blatant stares and whispers, counting down the minutes until he could leave. As soon as the final bell echoed through the halls, Clark was out. He quickly gathered his things and left the school as fast as possible. Fortunately, he also managed to avoid seeing Lewis again. Unfortunately, his phone had started going off nonstop with texts and calls from none other than Johnathan. Clark threw his phone in the bottom of his backpack and trudged home._ _

__On Mondays, his mom got off early from work, so Clark didn’t have to worry about picking Masie up from aftercare. Instead, he sat in his room and started reading a new book Alessandra had recommended. He did change into an actual shirt so he could give Lewis his sweatshirt back, but as soon as he took it off, he started missing its warmth. Deciding it wouldn’t hurt anyone, Clark put the hoodie back on over the shirt. Hey, it was comfortable._ _

__After an hour or so of reading, Clark figured he should get a jump start on his homework. He pulled out his computer and notebooks before realizing his phone was still at the bottom of the bag. It had gone blissfully silent, though he had 26 missed messages and 12 missed calls, and Clark plugged it in so it could charge._ _

__He was halfway through his calculus worksheet when it started vibrating again. Clark tried to ignore it, but the incessant buzzing started getting to him. Slamming his notebook shut, Clark picked up the phone and saw the incoming call from Bitch Boy. He smiled slightly at the name Alessandra had changed in his contacts before declining the call. It immediately started up again. Clark let out a frustrated hiss before throwing the phone to the end of the bed. He knew he could just put it on Do Not Disturb, but hating doing so. He always felt like he would miss an important call from his friends or something would happen to his family and he wouldn’t be able to help._ _

__He tried to continue working on his calc homework, but the buzzing just wouldn’t stop. Clark got through all of one problem before he snapped. Snatching his phone, he brought it to his ear and hit accept before he could think twice about it._ _

__“Clark?” Jonathan’s voice rang through the phone, sounding surprised he picked up._ _

__“Leave me the FUCK alone, asshole!” Clark shouted into the phone. He heard Johnathan start to say something, but hung up before he could get a word in. Hopefully, the calls would stop. Clark got a few seconds of blissful peace before his phone started buzzing again with a bunch of incoming text messages. Barely sparing them a glance, Clark tried to go back to doing his math homework. Before he could, something snagged his attention. It was a message, sent by someone other than Johnathan._ _

__Lewis 5 mins ago  
im here_ _

__Shit. He must have missed the text. Lewis was going to be furious. Clark dashed down the stairs, not wanting to keep Lewis waiting any longer than he had to. When he opened the door, he was greeted with an annoyed looking dark haired boy leaning on his red mustang. Lewis looked up from his phone when he heard Clark open the door._ _

__“Dude I've been waiting forever, what took you so long?” Impatience leaked into his voice._ _

__“Sorry, I missed your text,” Clark replied, closing the door behind him. Lewis stared at him in confusion, noticing his clothes._ _

__“Why are you still wearing it?” he asked. Clark froze. Shit, he forgot to take the hoodie off before coming outside. He decided it was in his best interest to play it cool._ _

__“I was cold, sue me,” he said with a shrug. He reached into the hoodie pocket to remove his phone and slid it into his jeans so he could take off the sweatshirt. Unsurprisingly, the phone was ringing obnoxiously with an incoming call. Lewis frowned at him._ _

__“Aren't you gonna to answer that?” Clark just gave him a look, shrugging off the sweatshirt. The hem of his real shirt came up with it, exposing his stomach to the cold, but he quickly shoved it back down once the rest of the hoodie came off. The entire time, his phone was buzzing violently._ _

__“No, it's just Johnny. He won't stop harassing me,” he sighed, annoyed by the constant ringing. He took his phone out to show Lewis and hit the end call button, only to have the phone light up once again._ _

__“Tell him to fuck off,” Lewis said, anger leaking into his voice. Clark just rolled his eyes._ _

__“I did already, he doesn’t really take no for an answer. He never did,” Clark said darkly. At that, something in Lewis’s eyes snapped._ _

__“Give me that,” he said, snatching the phone from Clark’s hand._ _

__“Hey!” Clark tried to take it back, but Lewis just held it out of his reach and hit the accept button before bringing the phone up to his ear._ _

__“Clark? Please hear me out.” Jonathan’s pleading voice was faint, but Clark had heard his excuses enough times to recognize what he was saying._ _

__“This isn't Clark,” Lewis growled. “Leave him the fuck alone.” Clark was shocked by the violent rage in Lewis’s voice and was very glad he was not on the receiving end of it._ _

__“Who is this? His boyfriend?” Jonathan’s voice sounded disbelieving. Clark felt his face start to heat up. Lewis just ignored the comment._ _

__“I won't tell you again. Leave him alone or I swear to god I will track you down and beat the ever living shit out of you.” With that, Lewis hung up the phone, handed it back to Clark, and stormed to his car. Clark stood in stunned silence, his brain short circuiting as it tried to grasp what just happened. He glanced down for a second, and realized he was still holding Lewis’s sweatshirt. Before he could think better of it, Clark ran down his walkway and jumped in front of Lewis’s car right as he was about to pull away._ _

__“What the fuck are you doing? I could have killed you!” Lewis yelled through his open window, pure panic and fear lighting up his eyes at the thought. Clark ignored his racing heart and extended the hoodie to him._ _

__“You forgot this. Wasn’t that the whole reason you came here?” he said, trying to steady his breathing._ _

__“Oh. Right.” Lewis snatched the hoodie out of Clark’s hand and threw it in his passenger seat. Clark stepped out of the way of his car and watched as Lewis disappeared down the road. Heading back inside, he started on his homework again. It wasn’t until late that night that Clark realized something. Jonathan had stopped calling him._ _


	7. Lewis POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bullies

Lewis sat on the edge of his king-sized bed, his thoughts a whirlwind of noise and conflict. His mind kept returning to yesterday. To Clark in his sweatshirt sitting in front of him in Chemistry and to the burst of fear that had filled him when Clark had jumped in front of his car. Lewis hadn’t been able to get a wink of sleep last night. Whenever he closed his eyes and began to drift off, the same four-word realization would pound on the walls of his mind, bringing him far away from any chance of sleep. 

_‘I care about Clark.’_

As the thought filled his head once again, Lewis shot up from his bed and began pacing around his room, ignoring the pins and needles that attacked his tired legs. _‘I could go swimming,’_ he thought. _‘But I don’t want to have to explain why I’m so stressed to my father. Shit.’_ Without halting his pacing, Lewis reached his hand out, grabbing the object closest to him and throwing it across the room. The snowglobe his mother had gotten him at the San Diego zoo years ago flew across the room, bouncing off of Lewis’s bed and breaking into hundreds of pieces as it hit the wall. _‘Fuck.’_

Lewis continued cursing under his breath as he hurried over to the broken snow globe, sifting through the sharp glass until he found the mini figurine of a mother holding her son’s hand. As he cradled it in his hand, he remembered the day he had convinced his mother to buy the snowglobe. She had needed to go to the bathroom and had told him to look around the gift shop, not intending to actually buy him anything. By the time she was out of the bathroom and had found him again, Lewis was huddled in the back corner of the shop, his eyes locked on a snowglobe pushed against the back wall of the shelf, its base covered in a thick layer of dust, and the glass dome fogged over with dirt.

“Come on honey, let’s go,” she said, her nose wrinkled in disgust at the dirty souvenir.

“Mom. Can we please get it?” Lewis whined, looking up at her with a pout on his face.

“No,” she responded firmly. “Why would you want something so gross anyways?”

“But mom. It has me and you in it at the zoo. Please mom,” Lewis begged. His mother opened her mouth to respond, but quickly shut it and took a moment to examine the snowglobe more closely. After a moment’s hesitation, she sighed and responded.

“Fine, but I’m not touching that thing until it’s clean,” she said.

Lewis was pulled back to the present when a jagged piece of glass cut into his hand, the sounds of his child-like joy fading away slowly. He cradled his arm to his chest as he stood up quickly, backing away from the mess of glass and fake snow. Lewis walked over to his bedside table and placed the figurine on it, his fists clenching in anger as soon as it was safe. He was standing stalk still next to his bed, sadness at the loss of his snowglobe joining his fury, when he heard a buzz from his phone. Taking a deep breath and prying his fingers away from his palms, he reached out and grabbed his phone. 

**Tuesday 7:09 AM**  
CLARK: Good luck on your math test!

Clark’s text threw Lewis’s mind back into the spiral it had been falling down all night. As his fingers hovered over the keyboard trying to think of how to respond, he came to a decision about Clark. It was too dangerous to care about him. It made Lewis weak and if his friends saw any sign of weakness in him, they would abandon him immediately. 

LEWIS: the only reason I’ll try to do well is so that I can punch you. 

Lewis hesitated before pressing the send button, knowing that his message would upset Clark, but forcing himself to send it anyways. _‘He needs to know that I do not care about him at all,’_ Lewis thought and ignored the voice in the back of his head telling him that that was a terrible idea. 

Shoving his phone into his pocket and throwing his backpack over his shoulder, Lewis left his room and headed out to his car to drive to school. By the time he pulled into a parking spot in front of his school, he had managed to wipe any thoughts of Clark from his mind, focusing on talking to his friends when he walked into the building and on the promise of hockey practice after school. 

Lewis was surrounded by his friends as soon as he entered the school, Trent and Chad appearing on either side of him. He continued walking until most of them fell away to get to class. Once he reached the English wing, only Trent and Chad, his best friends, were still beside him. 

“Dude, what the hell happened yesterday?” Chad asked.

“What?” Lewis responded, confused. Did something big happen without him knowing it?

“That gross nerd was wearing your hoodie,” Trent explained. _‘Shit,’_ Lewis thought. _‘How the hell am I going to explain that to them?’_

“Um, well, you see-”

“He must have stolen it,” Chad interrupted.

“Obviously,” Trent agreed. “Lewis would never give a boy his hoodie, much less a gay one.”

Lewis froze. ‘Wait. Clark was telling the truth about everyone knowing that he’s gay? Oh god. If they find out that I gave him my hoodie willingly, they’re gonna think that I’m gay too,’ Lewis thought, panicking.

“Oh yeah,” he said quickly. “I’m not sure how he did it but he definitely stole it.”

“He’s just an attention-seeking bitch,” Chad replied. “You got it back right?”

“Yeah and I almost ran into him with my car too.”

“Sick!” said Chad. “It’s too bad you didn’t actually hit him. That would have made my week.”

“Mhm,” Lewis hummed in agreement, but couldn’t bring himself to say anything else as he felt a roll of nausea pass through his stomach. Chad and Trent didn’t notice Lewis’s discomfort as they continued talking to each other about hanging out over the weekend.

They were about to turn the corner to walk towards Lewis’s first class when the sound of hurried footsteps approached them. Clark came barreling around the corner, his breathing heavy and his face pulled into a frown. When he saw Lewis, he stopped dead in his tracks, fixing him with a glare.

“You’re an asshole,” Clark snarled and tried to turn and walk away but was stopped when Chad grabbed roughly onto his arm. Lewis heard Clark yelp when Chad slammed him against the closest locker and took a step forward to stop him before remembering that he didn’t care about Clark. He stood still, watching as Chad grabbed onto Clark’s shirt and used it to pull him off the ground. Trent stalked towards the pair, examining Clark closely before stepping back, an evil smile twisting his face.

“Hey Chad,” he said. “Isn’t this the boy who stole Lewis’s sweatshirt yesterday?”

“You’re right Trent it is. I think we should teach him a lesson,” Trent replied. Clark’s face contorted in fear and he tried to squirm his way out of Chad’s grip to no avail. His gaze flicked over to Lewis, his eyes begging for his help, but Lewis didn’t let himself move. Lewis felt the nausea return, this time sitting deep inside his stomach and refusing to leave. Chad pulled back his fist to punch Clark and before he could stop himself, Lewis was there, pulling Chad off of Clark. 

“I want to beat him up myself,” Lewis explained, but Chad still looked annoyed. 

“Oh come on,” he grumbled. “Why can’t we just beat him up together.”

“Class is about to start and the teachers will be suspicious if we are all late and this kid is covered in bruises,” Lewis said, making up his reasoning on the spot. Trent and Chad groaned, but relented and left Lewis alone with Clark to get to their classes.

As soon as they were out of sight, Clark stepped away from Lewis, anger and betrayal painted across his face. 

“What the hell was that,” Clark said, barely stopping himself from yelling in the quiet hallway.

“My friends thought that you stole my sweatshirt and they like to defend me,” Lewis explained weakly.

“Why the fuck did they think I stole your sweatshirt?” Clark questioned. Lewis hesitated a moment before speaking, trying to think of the best response.

“They thought that I would never give my sweatshirt to a gay person,” Lewis said quietly.

“You’re such an ass,” Clark said, his voice almost a snarl now. Lewis opened his mouth, ready to defend himself, when Clark spoke again. “I’m not tutoring you anymore and I hope you fail this test and all the ones after it!” 

Clark turned and stormed off before Lewis could even think of a response. He couldn’t peel his eyes off Clark’s back as he walked away and didn’t move until Clark turned into a class and the ring of the bell jerked him into motion. Lewis rushed to class and made it before his teachers called his name for attendance, but wasn’t able to focus as she talked, his mind replaying Clark’s last words over and over in his head.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Lewis walked into Chemistry later that day, the first thing he saw was Clark sitting down and wincing as his back pressed up against the hard chair. A fresh wave of guilt joined the ones that had been rolling through Lewis all day and he swallowed it down before walking over to his seat. He tried to keep his gaze off of the back of Clark’s head and pay attention to Mr. Jefferson’s lesson about thermodynamics, and was moderately successful until Clark leaned forward to write something down, causing the neck of his shirt to fall down slightly and reveal the tip of a dark purple bruise. 

Lewis’s eyes locked on the bruise and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t look away. He remembered Clark’s wince earlier and knew that the bruise must cover most of his back. Lewis clamped his mouth shut as an overwhelming urge to apologize came over him. _‘Don’t be stupid,’_ he thought to himself. _‘You can’t let everyone in the class know that you care enough about Clark to say sorry.’_ Lewis found himself tapping his foot against the ground and then his pencil against the desk as he forced himself to keep quiet. 

He ignored his classmates' annoyed glances and focused on Mr. Jefferson as he began calling students up to the board to answer questions. 

“Clark. Can you answer number 19 for me?” Mr. Jefferson asked. Clark jerked his head up at the sound of his name and stumbled awkwardly out of his chair.

“Um, sure,” he said as he hurried up to the board. When he grabbed a piece of chalk and raised his hand up to begin writing, his shirt hiked up, leaving a sliver of skin showing above his jeans. Several people in the class gasped when they saw the ugly bruise covering his lower back. Mr. Jefferson frowned at them and glanced around to try and find out what they were so shocked by. His eyes widened when he too saw the bruise and he rushed over to Clark’s side, talking rapidly.

“Why do you have a bruise Clark? What happened?” he asked, forgetting that the entire class was there watching. Clark dropped the chalk and yanked his shirt down, spinning around so that his back was facing the wall.

“Oh it’s nothing,” he replied hurriedly. “Someone accidentally pushed me into a locker this morning, but I’m fine don’t worry.” Mr. Jefferson seemed to get even more stressed as Clark spoke and glanced around the classroom before his eyes locked on Lewis.

“I’m sending you to the nurse. Lewis, go with him to make sure he gets there okay,” Mr. Jefferson commanded. 

“What? No. I said I was fine. The nurse won’t be able to do anything,” Clark protested.

“Don’t argue with me Clark. You’re going to the nurse whether you like it or not. Now get out of here.”

Clark trudged out of the room reluctantly and Lewis hurried to join him when Mr. Jefferson's fierce glare locked on him. He jogged to catch up with Clark, who was speed walking down the hallway. When he saw Lewis at his side, he glared up at him before fixing his gaze on the ground and walking even faster. Lewis reached out to grab him so that he would walk slower before thinking better of it and pulling his hand back to his side.

“Hey! Slow down,” he said. Clark stopped abruptly, spinning to face Lewis.

“Why don’t you just fuck off,” he snarled. “Just wait here and walk back into class with me when I come back from the nurse.”

“No. I’m coming with you. I don’t trust you not to just go wait around the corner for a few minutes and not even go to the nurse,” Lewis replied.

“Why the hell do you even care? This is your fault,” Clark said, gesturing to his back as he spoke.

“I know it’s my fault,” Lewis mumbled. “And I’m sorry,” he tacked on when Clark gave him an unimpressed stare.

“Whatever,” Clark muttered, turning back around and walking down the hallway, this time slow enough for Lewis to easily match his pace. When they reached the nurse’s office, Clark hesitated before pushing the door open and walking quickly inside. Lewis followed slowly behind him, standing awkwardly against the wall as Clark explained his bruise to the nurse.

“Could you take your shirt off so that I can take a look at it and see how bad it is?” the nurse, her sickly sweet voice making Lewis’s nerves grind. 

“I guess,” Clark responded, reaching down to grab the hem of his shirt and glancing back at Lewis, who looked away quickly when their eyes met, before pulling it over his head. Lewis sucked in sharp breath when the full bruise came into sight. It covered most of Clark’s lower back, and snaked up his spine to the bottom of his neck. Most of it was a deep red color that was already fading into purple. 

“Oh honey, that looks pretty painful,” the nurse said sympathetically. “I can give you some ibuprofen but other than that all you can do is wait for it to fade, okay?”

“Ok,” Clark replied and tugged his shirt back when she stepped away to grab the medicine. 

As soon as they walked out of the office a few minutes later, Lewis turned to Clark and started apologizing again.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let them do that to you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine,” Clark muttered, ducking his head down as if embarrassed by Lewis’s guilt. _‘This is all my fault,’_ Lewis thought. _‘He got hurt because of me. I have to make it up to him.’_

“Did you really mean it when you said that you wouldn’t tutor me anymore?” Lewis asked hesitantly. Clark was silent for long enough for them to reach the science hallway before he responded.

“I was angry and you did apologize but I guess I can still tutor you.” 

“Great,” Lewis said, a smile breaking across his face.

“But only if you pass your test today. And if you do, I’m not letting you punch me,” Clark added. 

“Deal,” Lewis said, reaching his hand out to shake Clark’s. Clark reluctantly put his hand in Lewis’s and shook it quickly before pulling away. Lewis was shocked by how small and delicate Clark’s hands had looked inside of his own that he zoned out for a minute, forcing him to run to catch up with Clark once again. 

When they got back to Mr. Jefferson’s classroom, Lewis sat down and immediately took out his math notes to get a few extra minutes of studying in before the test. He noticed Clark glancing back at him a few times with an amused expression on his face, but diligently ignored him to focus on his notes. 

The bell rang only a few minutes after they got back to class and Lewis rushed out of the room, not wanting to be late for math. He was heading out the door when Mr. Jefferson stopped him and handed him a slip of paper. 

“We have a field trip next weekend. Make sure you get your permission slips signed by Friday,” he called out to the class as they left. Lewis stuffed the paper into his backpack and pushed the thought of a field trip to the back of his mind, wanting to stay focused on his math test.

As he walked down the busy hallways, his heart began beating faster and his hands felt sweaty. _‘I never get nervous before tests. What the hell is happening to me? Why do I care so much about getting tutored by Clark?’_ Lewis wondered as he took deep breaths to try to reign in his anxiety. 

It turned out that he had nothing to worry about. As soon as his teacher had passed out the test, Lewis’s mind had cleared immediately and he was easily able to answer every single question on the test. His teacher gave him a surprised smile when he was the first one to hand in his test, and he cheered mentally as he realized that he definitely got a passing grade. _‘Why didn’t I try tutoring earlier?’_ Lewis asked himself. _‘I could have gotten at least a B in math all through high school if I had.’_

Lewis returned to his seat and watched the other students slowly turn in their tests as time passed. By the time the bell rang to signify the end of the school day, Lewis was bored out of his mind and couldn’t wait to get onto his phone and tell Clark that he was going to have to start tutoring him again. He leapt out of his seat and made his way quickly out of the building, ignoring Chad and Trent when they tried to ask him about beating up Clark. He drove home before pulling out his phone so that his friends wouldn’t be able to ambush him in his car at the school.

**Tuesday 3:01 PM**  
LEWIS: just wanted to let you know that I definitely passed that math test so make sure you’re ready to keep tutoring me because I never want to fail a test again.  
CLARK: good job. we can figure out when to meet up again once you actually get your test back and I know that you’re not lying.  
LEWIS: I never lie, what are you talking about? ;)  
CLARK: Mhm sureee.

Lewis put his phone in his pocket and walked into his house, a broad smile forcing its way onto his face without permission. He was about to open the door to his bedroom when a cold voice ripped apart his joyous mood.

“What are you smiling about son?” Lewis’s father asked, a disapproving look on his face. He never liked Lewis showing emotions like happiness or sadness saying that it would give people a weakness to exploit.

“Oh hi dad I didn’t see you there,” Lewis laughed nervously. “I, um, I think I did well on my math test today.”

“So you’ve finally decided to care about school?” he asked. “It’s a little bit late for that.”

“Whatever, can I leave?” Lewis responded, annoyed that his father had found a way to make Lewis feel bad about himself just like he always did. He never cared about Lewis’s feelings because ‘we men don’t talk about stupid things like feelings,’ and the only time he truly paid attention to him was when whatever they were doing was related to Lewis taking over his father’s company when he got older. Lewis still hadn’t told him that he was more interested in hockey and chemistry than business and wasn’t planning on breaking the news to him until he was far away in college. 

“Fine,” his father said, pulling Lewis out of his thoughts. “But make sure you come down for dinner. I want to talk about options for college.” Lewis ducked into his room, rolling his eyes at another one of his father’s attempts to control his life. 

When he closed the door and sat down on his bed, he realized that he had gotten another text.

**Tuesday 3:10 PM**  
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Hi Lewis, my name is Alessandra. I’m Clark’s best friend and he doesn’t know that I got your number so do me a favor and don’t tell him that I texted you. I just wanted to let you know that if your friends ever hurt Clark again I will not hesitate to make your life a living hell. I hope you have a fantastic day. Bye!

Lewis was surprised to find that he was actually frightened by this girl's vague threat and gulped loudly before responding.

LEWIS: Duly noted.


	8. Clark POV

It was Thursday night, and Clark was exhausted. Not tired in the sense that he could just take a nap and bounce back, but simply bone-deep sick of school. He only had one day left to get through the week, and didn’t know how he would survive. Normally, Clark liked school fine, but lately all his teachers had just been piling on more and more work. He knew this would happen when he signed up for all AP classes, but he just couldn’t take one more second of staring at a textbook. Alive with the restless need to do anything but school work, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number. 

“Hello?” Alessandra’s voice rang through the room. 

“Hey, I’m bored as hell, what are you up to tonight?” Clark asked eagerly, hoping she didn’t have any plans with her new boyfriend, Jackson. They started dating the night of the party and had been practically inseparable since. Clark didn’t begrudge her for her happiness in the slightest, but he had been pretty lonely without her constant texts and calls. 

“Jackson is having ‘boys night’ tonight, gross, so I’m free.” Clark laughed at her disgusted tone as his heart leapt with joy. 

“Do you wanna go to a movie or something? I can check and see what’s on at the theater.” Clark held his breath, waiting for her response. 

“Sure! I’m always down. I gotta go have dinner, text me the showing times.” With that, she swiftly hung up the phone. Clark laid down on his bed, smiling happily as he scrolled through the movie theater's website. It was a local place that showed reruns of a bunch of popular movies, rarely showing anything newly released. Clark scrolled lazily through the options, looking for something interesting, or at least something he hadn’t seen before. The only movies showing were The Meg and The King’s Speech, and Clark had NO desire to watch some boring political thing about a random king. 

Clark: the meg is on at 8 tonight

Hottest Mofo Alive: sounds good to me ill pick you up at 730

Shoving his charger into his phone, Clark dashed downstairs to grab something to eat before his night out. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HOOOOONK. HOOONK. The blaring of the car horn threw Clark into motion. He dashed down the stairs, putting on a light jacket, the zipper getting caught a few times before he yanked it up, and throwing on his shoes as fast as he possibly could. Alessandra was not a very patient person, a fact that was made very apparent by the sounds shattering through the quiet night. 

“Bye Mom!” Clark called down the hall as he shoved his wallet into his coat pocket. 

“Bye honey, have fun! And tell Alessandra I miss her!” Clark’s mom shouted from her room. With that, Clark dashed out of the door and down his walkway, before jumping into the waiting vehicle. 

“Dude, no need to wake up the entire neighborhood,” Clark said as he pulled his seatbelt on. 

“You were taking forever,” Alessandra whined, pulling onto the street. Clark rolled his eyes. 

“I was out of the house in like three minutes! We’re going to get soooo many noise complaints tomorrow,” Clark groaned. Alessandra just laughed at him. 

“If that dumb hag Mrs. Johnson tries to say shit, just send her my way and I’ll gladly explain the situation,” she said maniacally. Clark giggled. Mrs. Johnson was his neighbor across the street. She was well into her 70s and Clark swore she spent every waking moment angry at the world, always finding something to complain about. 

Clark and Alessandra fell into easy conversation, catching each other up on what had been going on with them. Almost in no time, they reached the small mall that held the movie theatre and a few other stores. Alessandra pulled into a parking space as close as they could get to the entrance. The two of them hopped out of the car and headed into the theatre. As they were approaching the line, Clark saw two tall figures walking ahead of them. One of them looked kind of like Jackson, but Clark couldn’t tell who the other one was.

“Is that…?” Clark trailed off, nudging Alessandra and pointing in the direction of the two boys. She squinted, then her face lit up in recognition. 

“Jackson?” she called out. The two boys spun around. Sure enough, the slightly shorter one was Jackson, his dirty blonde hair glinting under the lights as his face broke out into a wide smile. Clark hurried after Alessandra, who had already taken off in his direction. But when Clark looked up at the other boy, he stopped in his tracks. 

“Lewis?” Clark asked, his voice filled with surprise. Lewis gave him an awkward smile as the two boys approached. 

“Hey guys!” Jackson called boisterously, throwing an arm around Alessandra.

“Hey babe, just the two of you?” she said, leaning into his side with a smile.

“Yeah, Oliver and Asher bailed, but we decided to just go see the movie without them,” he responded. 

“Oh, what movie?” Alessandra asked. Clark and Lewis just stood awkwardly off to the side, watching the exchange and trying very hard not to look at each other. 

“The Meg, I haven’t seen it before, though Lewis has. He’s a good sport though,” he said, throwing Lewis a friendly smile.

“No way! That's what we’re going to see too! Care to join us?” Alessandra said excitedly. Clark groaned inwardly. All he wanted was a peaceful night out. Preferably one where he could forget about Lewis. 

“Why not!” Jackson said. With that, the four of them hopped in line to get tickets. Alessandra and Jackson chatted happily, occasionally trying to draw Clark and Lewis into conversation. The two of them begrudgingly joined in, though Clark refused to look at Lewis. The air between them was charged, it felt like a live wire ready to sting Clark if he got too close.

After they got their tickets, the group jumped in line to get movie snacks. After a few minutes of bickering, they settled on getting a large popcorn and some drinks. The movie snacks were ridiculously overpriced as usual, so they didn’t want to buy anything too expensive. 

In no time at all, the four of them walked down the short carpeted hallway and ducked into theater 3. It was actually very full, unusual for a Thursday night. They looked around for seats so they could all sit together, but came up empty. They all shared an awkward look, trying to figure out who would sit with who. Clark sighed, but decided to be the bigger person. It was clear Alessandra wanted to sit with Jackson. 

“You two should sit together,” Clark said halfheartedly, already regretting his decision. Lewis’s head spun sharply to look at him, but Clark just continued to ignore him.

“Really? But I came with you,” Alessandra said. Clark could tell she felt guilty. 

“I really don't mind,” he said with a smile, trying to reassure her. 

“Yea, I see two seats down there that Clark and I can take. Have fun you guys,” Lewis interjected, startling Clark. He glanced up at the other boy, who was just staring at him. Clark could feel his face start to heat up and looked away. 

“You guys are the best,” Jackson said happily, shifting the large popcorn into one arm so he could grab Alessandra’s hand with the other. He started to walk towards the stairs when Lewis put a hand out to stop him. 

“Nuh uh, my charity only goes so far, hand over the popcorn,” he said teasingly. Jackson rolled his eyes, but handed the container to Lewis. 

“Fair enough, we’ll see you guys after.” With a wave, the two of them dashed up the steps and slid into a pair of empty seats. Clark watched them go longingly, suddenly very aware that he was now alone with Lewis. 

“After you,” Lewis said tightly, gesturing in the direction of the open seats. Clark just nodded, walking quickly past the other boy. He could feel Lewis’s eyes on the back of his head as he walked through the aisle, but did his best to ignore it. It was going to be a long night. Clark slid into the open seat and Lewis sat down next to him, handing him the popcorn. Clark took it, murmuring a quiet ‘thanks.’ Lewis just nodded. Everything about the situation was just so violently awkward that Clark wanted to scream. He settled for shoving the popcorn into his mouth to distract himself. Lewis started doing the same, digging his hand into the container and drawing out a large fistful of the kernels. Clark watched out of the corner of his eye as Lewis popped them one by one into his mouth. Once Lewis was finished, he glanced over at Clark, who quickly looked away, face burning. 

Soon enough, the mindless ads on the screen stopped and the lights dimmed. Clark tried really hard to ignore Lewis, but the other boy’s presence was intoxicating. Clark had no idea why he was so hyper aware of everything Lewis did. He tensed every time Lewis’s hand dug into the popcorn sitting in his lap, holding his breath until the hand retreated. The movie began, and Clark did his best to pay attention. They were about ten minutes in when Lewis turned to face him. 

“Sooooo,” he began. Clark turned to glare at him. 

“Shut up, I’m trying to pay attention.” Not really true, but Lewis was ruining his expert plan to just pretend he wasn't there.

“C’mon, I'm bored, talk to me. What’s the point of sitting with me if you’re just gonna ignore me all night?” Lewis whined. Clark let out an exasperated sigh. 

“I'm not in the mood for this. Just because I want her to be happy,” he said, gesturing to the back of the theater, “doesn't mean I'm not still mad at you.” Clark was surprised at how true the statement felt. He hadn’t realized how much bottled up anger he was holding on to. 

“Ouch, I thought we were passed that,” Lewis said. 

“Nope. It's going to take a lot more than one apology to make it right.” In the dim glow of the movie, Clark could swear he saw Lewis’s eyes fill with guilt. 

“Look, Clark, I’m really really sorry about that. I promise I won't let them hurt you again,” he sounded determined, but Clark couldn’t find it in himself to believe him. 

“Why didn’t you stop them sooner?” He was surprised at how much hurt filled his voice. Lewis flinched back, as though Clark’s words had slapped him. 

“I wanted to, I really did, I guess I just didn’t want them to turn on me,” Lewis said sincerely, but the bullshit answer brought Clark’s anger to the surface. 

“Why are you even friends with them to begin with?” he hissed, still trying to make an effort to keep his voice down as the movie played. 

“I- I don't know, I just sort of am.” His voice sounded deflated, but that just incensed Clark more. 

“Well, you shouldn’t be,” he ground out between clenched teeth. 

“Hey, look, they’ve been there for me when I needed them,” Lewis protested weakly. 

“They’re assholes that get off on attacking people. Can’t you see that’s fucked up?” he whisper shouted, his anger boiling through him. Lewis just seemed to shrink in on himself.

“It is, I know. It's... complicated. I can’t just leave them behind, I don’t have any other friends.” Clark was momentarily speechless. 

“How? I thought you were popular?” he asked incredulously. 

“I don't have any real friends, to be honest.” At Clark’s confused look, he clarified, “I feel like friends should be people who don’t judge you and you could tell anything too. Don’t have any of those, sooo…” He trailed off, refusing to meet Clark’s gaze. 

“You do.” The words flew out of his mouth before he could think better of it. 

“Who?” Lewis asked doubtfully. 

“Me, dumbass.” Clark rolled his eyes. Lewis looked up at him in shock. 

“What? I thought you were mad at me!” 

“I am.” 

“So then..?” Lewis looked totally lost. Clark softened. 

“Don't overthink it, I'm trying to be nice,” he said with a smile. Lewis just looked away. 

“Why? I don't deserve your kindness.” The self loathing in his voice was enough to make Clark pause, his heart squeezing painfully. Before he could think better of it, he reached out and turned Lewis’s face gently so he was looking Clark in the eyes. 

“I just like you, I dunno.” The minute the words flew out of Clark’s mouth he knew he fucked up. Both of their eyes went wide, and Clark could swear he saw Lewis blush. Clark desperately scrambled for something to say. “I mean- you’re fun to have around, I guess. I don’t have many friends either.” He pulled his hand away from Lewis, but glanced back to gauge his reaction. Lewis had a dumb, triumphant looking grin spread across his face. Even though Clark’s heart sped up at the sight, he couldn’t help but continue. “I’m still mad at you, though. You’ll have to make it up to me.” The smile on Lewis’s face died, and Clark was sad to see it go.

“How?” he asked. 

“Well, for starters you can shut up so I can watch the movie,” Clark said, turning back to look at the screen. A large shark was currently swimming around, violently devouring unsuspecting people. 

“Fair enough,” Lewis said with a laugh, turning back to look at the movie as well. Clark had never been a fan of the ocean, always afraid of what was lurking under the water. The movie did nothing to calm his fears, and he found himself sitting on the edge of his seat, heavily invested in the plot. He could feel Lewis watching him, but didn’t really care. He was too busy hoping his favorite characters weren’t about to be devoured. 

The people had killed the megalodon, when one of the characters was pushed into the water. Clark didn't know why, but he was filled with a strange sense of trepidation. All of a sudden, another massive shark leapt out of the depths of the ocean, eating the character and scaring the shit out of Clark in the process. He failed in his seat, spilling the popcorn and grabbing onto the closest thing to him, which happened to be Lewis’s arm. Lewis just looked at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing. Clark let go of his arm sheepishly and bent down to pick up the spilled popcorn. Lewis was practically shaking with laughter. 

“Shut up!” Clark hissed, smacking him playfully on the arm. That just made Lewis laugh more, only getting it under control when several glares were shot at him from the other movie goers. 

“Is the movie too scary for you?” he crooned. Clark glared at him, not deigning to respond. Lewis burst into another fit of giggles. “Do you need me to hold your hand?” Clark rolled his eyes, but Lewis wouldn’t stop laughing. Clark snatched his hand from where it was resting on the armrest in between their seats and threaded his fingers through it. His plan worked; Lewis immediately shut up, eyes wide as he looked at their interlocked hands. He didn’t pull away though, and Clark went back to watching the movie, a triumphant smile playing at his lips. 

Clark found very quickly that it was incredibly hard to pay attention with his hand in Lewis’s. He could feel tingles racing up and down his arms at every move Lewis made. When Lewis’s thumb started to absentmindedly trace circles on the back of his hand, Clark swore he was going to combust. As hard as he tried to force his feelings down, the sweet gesture made every wall Clark had built start to crumble. All too soon, the credits started to roll and the lights flickered back on. Clark groaned as his eyes adjusted, drawing his hand from Lewis’s so he could stretch. Almost immediately, he missed it’s warmth, but did his best to ignore the part of him that was begging him to grab it again. Lewis bent over and grabbed the popcorn container and headed into the aisle, Clark close behind him. They followed the flow of people out the doors and into the hallway, where they waited for Alessandra and Jackson. Soon enough, the two of them popped out of the theater and headed over to where Clark and Lewis were standing in comfortable silence. 

“Hey guys!” Jackson said excitedly. Clark raised his eyebrows as they approached, getting a good look at their appearances. Jackson’s hair was a disheveled mess and both of their lips looked slightly red and swollen. It definitely seemed like the two of them had fun. Clark shot Alessandra a knowing look. She just stuck her tongue out at him in response. Together, the group fell into easy chatter as they exited the building. Once outside, the cold air bit into Clark, piercing through his light jacket. As they started to head towards the cars, Clark found himself not wanting the night to end. 

“Wanna go get ice cream?” Clark asked, halting the heated argument on whether or not Jackson should let Alessandra paint his nails. 

“Sure that sounds great!” Alessandra said enthusiastically, dragging Jackson with her as she headed to the Ben and Jerry’s across the parking lot. Lewis waited until Clark fell into stride next to him before the two took off after them. 

“You’re paying, you know,” Clark said, looking up at Lewis, who turned and fixed him with an annoyed glare. 

“What, why?” Lewis asked. 

“You owe me for being such an amazing friend,” Clark said matter of factly. “Might as well start now.” Lewis rolled his eyes but didn’t protest, opening the door for Clark before following him inside. They caught up to Alessandra and Jackson in the line, saying a quick hello before they all ordered. Jackson started to pull out his wallet to pay for his ice cream before Clark put a hand out to stop him. 

“Don’t worry about it, Lewis is paying,” Clark said sweetly. 

“Yup, I got it,” Lewis said through gritted teeth before handing his money over to the cashier. 

“Aww, thanks Lewis. You’re a real one,” Alessandra said as she dug into her ice cream. It was her usual, mint chocolate chip ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and m&ms. Jackson had gotten a raspberry blast milkshake, which he was happily slurping on as they sat down at a nearby table. Clark squeezed into the back of the booth, allowing Lewis to sit down next to him. Their shoulders brushed a few times as they dug into the ice cream, but Clark didn’t mind in the slightest. Lewis glanced over, looking quizzically at Clark’s ice cream. 

“What is that?” 

“Caramel fudge brownie with gummy bears,” Clark replied fondly, taking another bite. Lewis made a disgusted face. 

“That’s gross!” Lewis said. Clark rolled his eyes. 

“You wanna talk about gross? You’re eating banana ice cream. Disgusting.” It was Lewis’s turn to look appalled. 

“It’s good!” He protested. “With the chocolate sprinkles, what’s not to like?” Clark just gave him a look. 

“A whole lot, that's for sure.” Clark turned away from Lewis, a big mistake on his part. Lewis took a spoonful of his ice cream and smeared it on his nose. For a second, Clark didn’t say anything, too shocked to respond. When the ice cream slid down his face, he snapped out of his stupor and angrily wiped it off with a napkin. Lewis was cackling at him, head thrown back against the booth. Deciding to retaliate, Clark grabbed a massive spoonful of his ice cream and smeared it all across Lewis’s cheek. Lewis froze, looking at him in shock. Clark just smirked at him. 

“Now we’re even.” Alessandra and Jackson burst out into laughter at the look on Lewis’s face, and Clark joined them. Lewis looked at Clark for another long moment before smiling at him. Clark did his best to ignore the way his stomach flipped.   
Soon enough, they all finished eating and tossed away the empty cups before heading outside. Alessandra was pressed firmly into Jackson’s side, the two of them being practically inseparable the whole night. The four of them all stopped next to Alessandra’s car, neither of them wanting to let go. He and Lewis shared a look. 

“You guys can home together, I'll give Clark a ride back,” Lewis said suddenly. Clark raised his eyebrows in surprise, but didn’t object. 

“You sure?” Alessandra asked, looking at Clark for confirmation that he was okay with it. 

“Yea, have fun,” he said as Alessandra ducked into the drivers seat. Clark turned to Jackson with a smile on his lips. “Try not to get her pregnant,” he said cheerfully. 

“Sir yes sir.” Jackson mock saluted Clark as he hopped into the passenger seat. Alessandra glared at him through the windshield. 

“Fuck off!” she yelled, flipping him off as she pulled out of the parking space. Clark just blew her a kiss and watched as they drove off. 

“Okay where to next my lord?” Lewis’s voice startled Clark and he spun around to face him. 

“What?” Lewis made no sense sometimes. 

“What’s the plan for the rest of the night?” he asked. 

“You’re not just taking me home?” Clark responded. 

“I’m not done making it up to you, so why don’t we do something fun?” 

“Okay,” Clark said slowly. “Like what?” Lewis seemed to think on it for a second, before an idea lit up his eyes. 

“Do you wanna go for a swim?” 

“W-What?” Clark must not have heard him right. 

“I have a pool,” Lewis said matter of factly. Clark just started at him like he grew a third arm. 

“It's freezing.” Clark pointed out. 

“It's a heated pool.” Lewis shot back. Clark rolled his eyes. 

“Oh, of course it is, I forgot you were rich.” Lewis just smirked at him. 

“Yup, is that a yes then?”

“Fine,” Clark said with a heavy sigh, following Lewis to his car. The two boys hopped in and sped off into the night. They fell into an easy conversation, talking about their upcoming Chemistry field trip. Apparently they were going to go into the forest for a few days to do experiments or something. Neither really knew what the trip would entail, but Mr. Jefferson was very passionate about it, and his enthusiasm could be infectious. The time passed by quickly. Clark wasn’t lying when he said he enjoyed Lewis’s company. Without any of his friends around, Lewis was actually very nice to spend time with. Clark even found himself enjoying their irritated banter, loving the way Lewis got very passionate about whatever dumb topic they argued about. 

Soon enough, they pulled into a large three car garage that was sitting next to an absolutely gigantic mansion. It looked big enough to fit four of Clark’s houses inside, and the large double doors looked like a hungry mouth that was going to eat Clark whole. Clark felt himself not wanting to leave the comfort of Lewis’s car, but followed reluctantly when Lewis got out. Once inside, Clark couldn’t shake the feeling that the house felt like a giant tomb, the marble floors glinted coldly under the lights Lewis had turned on. Clark looked around, straining to hear anything, but the house was completely silent except for the sound of their footsteps. 

“Where are your parents?” Clark asked, voice echoing slightly as Lewis led him through the house. 

“Out of town on a business trip.”

“So you get the whole house to yourself?”

“Yup. Been that way since I was 13 and they figured I was old enough to take care of myself. You get pretty used to the quiet.” Clark froze, sadness shooting through him at the thought of young Lewis having to spend his time in the giant, empty space all by himself. 

“Oh.” Clark didn’t know what else to say. Lewis glanced back at him, noticing Clark had stopped. 

“C’mon, the pool is this way,” he said, gesturing to Clark. Clark followed behind him closely, already feeling lost in the maze of the different rooms. They passed through at least two living rooms since they had been walking, and Clark was already turned around. To be fair, he did have a terrible sense of direction. 

“Jesus christ, your house is MASSIVE. How many rooms do you have?” 

“Honestly I have no idea. We never use most of them anyways.” The two boys finally reached what seemed to be the back of the house, and Lewis held the door open for Clark. He stepped outside, awestruck by what he saw. Contrary to the tomblike feel of the inside, the pool deck was filled with life. There were potted plants and flowers everywhere, giving it a cool jungle-like feel. The pool itself was massive, the water glowing a deep blue as Lewis flipped on the pool lights and adjusted the temperature to make it warmer. Surrounding the pool was an array of comfy looking chairs, a bar, and a small pool house, which Clark assumed held the towels. 

“Ta-da!” Lewis said, gesturing wildly to the space. 

“It’s beautiful,” Clark said breathlessly. Lewis smiled at him. 

“C’mon let’s get changed and grab some towels.” He turned to walk to the pool house. In that moment, Clark realized something. 

“Wait, I don’t have anything to wear.” Lewis rolled his eyes and grabbed Clark’s arm, dragging him to the small building. 

“You can wear one of my old bathing suits. I’m sure there will be one lying around that's your size.” Clark huffed, but followed willingly. Inside the bath house was quite cozy; big fluffy blankets piled up in small cubbies and bamboo dividers separating off a few changing rooms. Lewis walked over to a large closet, pulling the doors open to reveal a small room practically overflowing with bathing suits. Lewis started rummaging through it, looking for something. Soon enough, he snatched something from one of the bins and held it up triumphantly. Clark raised his eyebrows, looking at the pineapple covered swim trunks Lewis was holding. 

“These are the smallest ones I could find. We got rid of a bunch of stuff like four years ago, but this still fit me back then so we held onto it.” He tossed it over to Clark. 

“Thanks,” Clark said as he headed over to one of the changing rooms. He heard Lewis grab a bathing suit and go into the other one. Trying not to think too much about Lewis undressing practically next to him, Clark slid off his clothes. He then pulled the swim trunks up around his waist, though when he let go of them, they sagged horribly. He sighed, tying the strings as tightly as they would go to keep them from falling off. 

“Why do you have to be so… big,” he complained, stepping out of the changing room to see Lewis with a few towels in his arms. 

“It's not my fault you're short,” Lewis shot back. “Just grow, it's not that hard.” Clark glared at him.

“Shut up.” Lewis handed one of the towels to Clark, and Clark got a glorious view of Lewis’s bare chest. His tanned skin glowed in the light and the outlined muscles of his chest shifted and flexed as he moved. Clark’s eyes continued to trail down Lewis’s body, coming to a stop when he saw the deep V leading into Lewis’s blue swim trunks. Quickly averting his gaze, Clark hoped the dim light hid his slight blush as he grabbed the towel. Lewis left the pool house with Clark close behind, following suit when Lewis tossed his towel onto a nearby pool chair. Without the towel trapping some warmth against his chest, Clark felt exposed to the chill night. He started shivering as the two boys approached the pool. 

“It's s-so cold out.” His teeth chattered slightly as he spoke. Lewis turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. 

“Get in the water if you’re so cold.” When Clark didn’t move, Lewis smirked at him. “Afraid there's a shark?”

“No!” Clark protested. 

“Then jump it,” Lewis said, taking a step closer to Clark. Clark looked away as the other boy came close enough that he could feel the heat radiating off of him. All he wanted to do was lean into Lewis’s warmth, but managed to restrain himself. 

“I will, it’s just-” All of a sudden, Clark felt two hands on his back, shoving him forward. Clark stumbled, but was unable to recover his balance. He flailed wildly, grabbing onto Lewis to try to stop his fall. Lewis’s eyes flew wide as Clark tipped over the edge, dragging Lewis with him. Clark careened into the water with a loud splash. It immediately enveloped him in its warm embrace. His lungs were already screaming because he hadn’t been able to take a breath before he was pushed into the pool. Kicking wildly, Clark burst through the surface of the pool, greedily drinking down air and trying to catch his breath. Lewis had already surfaced and was cackling at him. 

“You... ASSHOLE!” Clark spluttered. “What was that for!?” 

“You were taking forever! I thought I’d help you out a little bit,” Lewis managed to say in between bouts of laughter. All Clark wanted was to wipe the dumb smile off his face. Cocking his hand back, he slapped the water as hard as he could, sending a giant wave over Lewis. Lewis spluttered before glaring at Clark. 

“You’re going to regret that,” he growled. A shiver of fear ran through Clark and he dove into the water, narrowly avoiding the water Lewis splashed at him. Resurfacing in the shallow end of the pool so he could actually stand, Clark looked around frantically for Lewis. Suddenly, Lewis popped up next to him and tossed water into his face, giving Clark a mouthful. Clark shrieked and retaliated, and their splash battle quickly devolved into both of them getting absolutely drenched and choking on water. 

“Truce, truce!” Clark shouted, trying to catch his breath. The water being thrown at him stopped and he looked up at Lewis, who was surprisingly close to him. The water dripped out of his shaggy, dark hair and onto his handsome face. Clark looked into his eyes, frowning as he saw malicious amusement glittering in their dark depths.

“Never!” Lewis shouted, then lunged for Clark. He had just enough time to inhale a quick breath before Lewis slammed into him, arms wrapping completely around his chest. Clark started to feel trapped, but just as quickly as it happened, Lewis dragged them back up to the surface. Clark immediately smacked Lewis’s chest and glared up at him. Lewis just laughed, arms still wrapped tight around Clark. 

“Stop it,” Clark said through gritted teeth. Lewis’s laughing subsided as he looked down at Clark with a smirk. 

“You’re cute when you're angry.” Clark’s eyes went wide at the words. He was suddenly very aware of just how pressed up against Lewis’s body he was. Every place where their skin touched felt like it had been set on fire, but Clark wanted to get burned. Lewis’s hands slid from their place at Clark’s back and down to his waist, his dark eyes never leaving Clark’s. Lewis smirked at him again, and Clark wanted so badly to close the space between them and wipe the look off of Lewis’s face with his lips. Suddenly, Clark felt Lewis’s hands grip his sides and Clark could do nothing as Lewis hoisted him up and threw him into the pool.   
Clark came up sputtering once again, to find Lewis practically dying because of how much he was laughing. Although Clark wanted to be angry, he couldn’t help but laugh alongside him. 

“I win!” Lewis said triumphantly, smiling at Clark. 

“Whatever, as long as you don’t fucking throw me again,” Clark said with halfhearted anger. 

“It’s not my fault you're so light.” Clark sent a small splash in his direction but quickly apologized when Lewis raised his hand to retaliate. Sinking into the water, Clark let himself relax, the warmth seeping into his tired body. 

“Wanna test out the diving board?” Lewis asked. Clark glanced up to the deepest part of the pool. Sure enough, there was a long, blue board sticking out over the water. Clark grimaced. 

“I… don't know how to dive,” he said sheepishly.

“Really?” Lewis sounded disbelieving. 

“Yup. I just never learned how.”

“Would you like me to demonstrate?” Lewis asked. Clark raised an eyebrow at the other boy. 

“You mean show off?”

“Potato, potahto.” In no time at all, Lewis swam over to the deep end of the pool and dragged himself out of the water in one smooth motion. Clark watched, breath catching in his throat, as the water ran in delicate rivulets down Lewis’s strong back muscles. Clark shook his head, trying to rid himself of all the thoughts that started to pop into his mind. Swimming into the deep end and clinging onto the wall, Clark watched as Lewis walked to the diving board. In a few quick strides, Lewis was bouncing on the end before he jumped high into the air, did a flip (to Clark’s surprise), and dove perfectly into the water. His powerful body sliced through it barely making a splash. Clark was annoyed at Lewis for being able to dive so well, and annoyed at himself for finding it so damn impressive. After a few seconds passed, Clark realized he couldn’t see Lewis anymore. Frowning, he pushed off the wall and swam deeper, searching the water. 

Suddenly, a hand wrapped around Clark’s ankle and yanked him down. Clark managed to keep his head above the water, but the adrenaline that pumped through his veins made it feel like his heart was going to beat right out of his chest. When Lewis resurfaced next to him, Clark spun to yell at him. 

“Don’t that! You scared the shit out of me!” Lewis just laughed. 

“I like seeing you all worked up,” he crooned, voice flowing around Clark like silk. That shut Clark up immediately, heart somehow beating even faster than it was before. Lewis just smiled at him before swimming away. After Clark got himself under control, the two boys swam lazily around, occasionally sniping at one another. 

“I think I’m going to get out,” Clark said after a little while. His fingers had started to get all pruney and his limbs felt heavy from all the swimming. 

“Alright,” Lewis sighed following Clark out of the pool. When they reached the pool chairs, Clark grabbed his towel and handed the other one to Lewis. They dried off in comfortable silence, both lost in thought. Clark happened to be thinking about how badly he wanted to be pressed up against Lewis again, and his mind was too tired to try and steer him away. The sight of Lewis’s bare chest also did nothing to help the matter. 

“Shall we get dressed?” Lewis asked. Clark nodded, not trusting himself to respond without saying something he would regret. The two of them walked into the pool house and quickly changed out of their wet bathing suits and back into their normal clothes. Clark threw on his jacket, huddling into its fickle warmth. The two of them then trekked back through the giant house, Clark following closely behind Lewis so he wouldn’t get lost, and into the garage. Lewis opened the door for Clark, who mumbled a tired ‘thank you’ before hopping in the car. Lewis just smiled at him, seeming to realize that Clark was too exhausted for normal conversation. When they were in the car, Lewis turned on the radio and Clark leaned against the door, quickly drifting off to sleep. 

“Clark, Clark. We’re here,” Lewis said gently, shaking Clark’s shoulder. 

“Huh?” he said groggily, trying to shake himself awake. 

“We’re at your house. Unless you want me to carry you inside again, this is the part where you get out of the car,” Lewis said. Even in his half asleep state, Clark still blushed at the thought of what Lewis did. 

“Okay.” He yawned, stretching out his stiff limbs and giving his wet hair a shake. He could tell his curls were going to be a tangled disaster tomorrow, but really could not bring himself to care. 

“I had fun tonight,” Lewis called out as Clark got out of the car. He did so reluctantly, not wanting to leave the night behind. 

“Same. Well, I’ll see you around I guess.” With that, Clark shut the door and started up his walkway. 

“Yea, bye Clark,” Lewis said reverently, almost too quiet for Clark to hear. He felt a shiver go through himself at the sound of his name on Lewis’s lips, but refused to look back. Only after he was inside his house and up in his bedroom did he allow himself to stare longingly at the place where Lewis’s car had been.


	9. Lewis POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was the original idea for the fic so enjoy

It was Friday morning and Lewis was about to head out of his house to get to school when he remembered that the permission slip for their AP Chemistry field trip was due today. Clark had texted him a reminder that had sent him scrambling to locate the paper at the bottom of his bag and find one of his parents to sign it. He searched the entire house for them remembering they had gone on one of his father’s business trips. In his search, he passed by the pool deck and was struck with memories of last night.

_Clark in Lewis’s arms, staring up at him with those gorgeous blue eyes. Clark moved slightly closer, coming completely flush against Lewis’s chest. The water from the pool dripped slowly out of his wet curls, sliding slowly down his face. Lewis’s eyes trailed to his lips, which parted slightly. His whole body went somehow hot and cold at the same time, and he couldn't stand it. Clark shuddered as he slid his hands down his slight frame, trailing his fingertips reverently down the other boy and stopping at his hips. Then, grabbing him and throwing him as far away as possible._

Lewis shook himself out of the vivid memory, not allowing his mind to slip into a fit of wishing that something else happened. Something… that Lewis refused to think about. Shaking his head, he wandered back to the front of his house. 

Lewis was about to give up and resign himself to skipping the trip when he had an idea. He quickly signed the paper himself and ran out the door, getting to school just after the bell for the first period rang. He hurried to his math class and when walked into the door as his teacher announced to the class that she would be handing back their tests at the end of the period. 

An overwhelming feeling of nervousness filled Lewis as he sat down in the back of the classroom. He hadn’t met with Clark at all this week for tutoring and if he didn’t do well on this test, he never would again. He didn’t know why the thought of that happening made him feel so nauseous and he tried to ignore it, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the stack of papers on Mrs. Davidson’s desk. As he stared, images of Clark filled his mind, his hair curling down the sides of his face as he took notes in Chemistry, the peaceful look on his face when he was asleep, the sight of him standing shirtless and dripping wet in Lewis’s arms. The hour-long period seemed to last years as Mrs. Davidson explained derivatives in her monotone voice.

When she finally wrapped up her lecture, Lewis was sitting on the edge of his seat with a hand on his knee to stop it from bouncing because of his nerves. She took her time walking over to her desk and gathering the stack of graded tests into her hands before turning to face the class.

“Overall, the class did very poorly on this test,” she stated. “I do not offer retakes so you will all have to study hard for your next test if you want to graduate.”

Lewis felt sweat begin to build up in the palms of his hands at his teacher’s words. ‘Oh no, what if I didn’t pass? What will I do if Clark stops tutoring me?’ Lewis worried to himself as Mrs. Davidson began to hand back the tests. She reached him last and Lewis’s hand shook as he grabbed the test from her. He had to force himself to flip the test over and flinched away when the grade came into sight.  
91%, A- Good Job!  
Lewis opened his mouth to shout out in celebration but quickly cleared the visible excitement from his face when he remembered that he was still in class. He let himself look at the writing at the top of his test for another minute before folding it up and stuffing it in his bag.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
“Today is the last day that I can accept permission slips,” Mr. Jefferson said once everyone was present in their Chemistry class at the end of the day. He looked down at a list, scanning it to see which names didn’t have a check next to them.

“Lewis you’re the only one I haven’t gotten a slip from yet, do you have it with you?” he asked. As Lewis reached down to pull the paper out of his bag, he saw Clark glance at him, the hopeful look on his face turning into a full-blown smile. ‘His smile is so beautiful,’ Lewis thought. ‘Shit! Nope, that’s not true. I can’t think that a boy is beautiful.’ Lewis shot up with the permission slip in his hand, shaking his head to rid it of that train of thought. 

“Here it is,” Lewis said, his voice cracking on the last word. 

“Fantastic,” Mr. Jefferson said, taking the paper from Lewis and heading back up to his desk. “We will be going on an overnight field trip with Mrs. Skelton’s AP Chemistry class. We are camping in Oconee National Forest and we will collect plant and water samples to analyze while we’re there. The school has rented tents for us to use but make sure that you bring a sleeping bag or warm blanket because although it will be warm during the day, the temperature drops a lot at night. You will also need water, snacks, a notebook, and a pen or pencil to write down any observations.”

Mr. Jefferson paused, staring off into the distance as if trying to remember something. “Oh, and you’ll all want to bring backpacks to carry the supplies. I think that’s everything, but if I forgot anything there’s a list of things to bring that I can give all of you. The bus leaves at six am tomorrow and if all goes as planned we will be back to the school before lunch on Sunday. Does anyone have any questions?” 

A short boy in the front of the class raised his hand. Lewis thought that his name was Matt but he had never actually talked to him so he couldn’t be sure. 

“Will we each get our own tent?” he asked.

“No you will be sharing with one other person who will be your partner for the entire trip,” Mr. Jefferson explained. “Your partners are listed on the information sheet. Speaking of that, Clark, could you help me pass them out?”

“Of course Mr. Jefferson,” Clark said, standing up to grab the stack of papers. As he walked around the classroom distributing the papers, Lewis’s eyes were drawn to Clark’s legs. They were wrapped tightly in black skinny jeans that accentuated his curvy thighs and hugged his round ass. ‘What the hell is wrong with me? I’ve never thought so much about how anyone looked before.’ 

Lewis was pulled out of his thoughts when Clark came up to him, biting his bottom lip and hesitating before handing Lewis one of the papers. Lewis gave him a confused look before looking down to skim through the information on the sheet. His eyes widened when he reached the list of partners and saw Clark’s name written next to his own.  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Lewis woke up Saturday morning to the incessant buzz of his alarm. Groaning he reached out to silence it before he remembered why he had an alarm set for so early on a Saturday. He rolled out of bed, stretching his arms up above his head and turning off his alarm before heading out of his room to eat breakfast. 

The quiet house would have seemed eerie to Lewis if he wasn't so used to it. He made himself a few pieces of toast with butter and ate them quickly. When he got back up to his room to get dressed he checked the time on his phone and jumped into action when he saw that it was already 5:45. He threw on his clothes and grabbed the hoodie closest to him. Grabbing the bag of supplies he had packed the night before, Lewis rushed out his door and drove far above the speed limit to get to the school on time. When he pulled into the parking lot he saw Clark and Mr. Jefferson standing outside of the bus as the last of the students disappeared up its stairs. 

Lewis jogged over to the pair and saw a relieved smile appear on Mr. Jefferson’s face when he saw him.

“Thank god,” Mr. Jefferson said. “I was worried that we might have to leave you behind. I had Clark wait out here for a minute to see if you would come because everyone is sitting with their partners on the bus to make everything easier. You guys can head on up.”

Clark muttered a quick “Hi” in Lewis’s direction before hurrying up the steps into the bus. Lewis took his time following him and frowned when he saw that the only seat left was right at the front of the bus. He was about to go to the back to force someone to move when he felt a tug on the sleeve of his hoodie. He looked down to see Clark smiling up at him. 

“Sit down,” he said. “We need to leave.”

“Fine, but I’m taking the window seat move,” Lewis demanded.

“No, I got here first. I get the window seat,” Clark argued. Lewis fixed him with a heated glare and without taking his eyes off Clark’s face, he grabbed his arm and dragged him away from the window seat. He stepped over the boy’s legs, ignoring his surprised yelp, and sat down triumphantly next to the window.

“Hey!” Clark exclaimed indignantly. “You’re so mean.”

“Whatever, I have something to show you,” Lewis replied, ducking down to pull his test out of his bag as the bus pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. Once he found the test, he sat up and handed it to Clark. 

“What’s this?” Clark asked.

“Look at it,” Lewis replied.

Heading Lewis’s command, Clark looked down at the test, his eyes shooting up to meet Lewis’s when he saw the grade.

“You did it!” Clark said. Without thinking, Clark slid over to Lewis’s side of the chair and enveloped him in a hug. Lewis tensed up, his arms frozen by his side as he stared down into Clark’s fluffy hair. A second later, Clark seemed to realize what he’d done and pulled back quickly, pushing himself as far away from Lewis as he could.

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry. Why did I do that? I’m so sorry. I know you don’t want me hugging you,” Clark rambled, pausing to suck in a breath of air before opening his mouth to continue. Lewis put his hand on Clark’s shoulder to stop him and hesitated a moment before speaking.

“It’s, um, fine,” Lewis muttered. “You’re a good hugger I guess.”

Clark’s mouth hung open for a solid minute until he snapped closed and looked up at Lewis with wide, shocked eyes.

“Oh,” he said quietly. “Thank you?”

Lewis turned to look out the window without responding, the moment becoming too awkward for him to bear. He had also needed an excuse to pull his eyes away from Clark’s deep blue eyes and plump lips that kept drawing him in. ‘Stop!!’ he yelled at himself internally. ‘I need to stop thinking like this. I can’t think he’s attractive. I can’t like him. No.’ 

Lewis kept his gaze locked on the passing scenery for the next half hour, barely stopping himself from turning back to look at Clark again. He had just convinced himself to ignore Clark for a few minutes longer when he felt a weight fall onto his shoulder. When he looked over, he saw Clark’s head resting on his shoulder, his eyes closed, and face fully relaxed.

Lewis froze, not wanting his movement to wake the tired boy up, and finally allowed himself to look at him. As he took in the pale skin of Clark’s neck and the slender hands clasped in his lap, Lewis’s mind began to resign itself to the fact that he really did like Clark. 

When they arrived at Oconee National Forest over an hour later, Clark was still sleeping on Lewis’s shoulder and Lewis was still trying to come to terms with his realization. 

“Clark, wake up. We’re here,” Lewis said, tapping the boy’s shoulder to bring him back to the world of the living. Clark’s eyes fluttered open and he looked around in confusion as he tried to figure out where he was. He jerked up when he saw Lewis looking down at him and looked out the window.

“How long was I asleep?” he asked.

“A little more than an hour,” Lewis replied.

“You should have woken me up,” Clark said. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t mind,” Lewis said quietly. Before Clark could respond, Mr. Jefferson and Mrs. Skelton stood up to tell them what to do.

“We are going to head over to the campsite. It should only be a ten minute walk away and the tents have already been set up so we just need to drop our stuff off and then you can all go exploring and collect samples,” Mr. Jefferson explained.

“Before you all get too excited let me explain the rules,” Mrs. Skelton cut in. “You must stay with your partner anytime you leave camp and let me or Mr. Jefferson know before you go anywhere. Each pair will have to collect a sample from a plant or a stream. We have maps for each group with a path marked to the place you will find the samples. Be sure you don’t get lost.”

Mr. Jefferson nodded along as she spoke and began talking again as soon as she finished. “Once you drop off your sleeping bags and change of clothes, we will give you your assignment and map. You will each bring a backpack with your notebooks, water, and snacks. The first team back wins a prize. Now let’s get off this bus and get adventuring!”

The sounds of students standing up and grabbing their bags filled the bus as everyone hurried to get off. Lewis followed Clark off the bus, suddenly thankful that they had been forced to sit at the front as they were able to avoid the mass of students pushing each other to try to get off first. They waited at the edge of the woods for everyone to get off the bus and gather around Mr. Jefferson for a headcount. Once he knew that they were all there, he told them how to get to the campsite and they were off. 

They walked down the well-beaten path for about eight minutes before they reached a ring of tents filling a large clearing.

“You and your partner can choose whichever tent you want just be quick about it so we have enough time to get through everything,” Mr. Jefferson called out from behind them. Lewis made a beeline for a tent that looked slightly bigger than the others and set his bag down in it, pulling out his water and note taking supplies. Next to him, Clark was stuffing snacks into a backpack and Lewis leaned over to drop his things in the bag with Clark’s.

“Why are you bringing so many snacks?” Lewis asked. “We’ll probably be back before lunch.”

“My mom packed them and she’ll think that I didn’t eat enough if I don’t eat all of them,” Clark explained. 

“Is that everything we need?” Lewis asked, changing the topic of conversation before he could let the fact that his mother hadn’t worried about something like that for years bring him down.

“Yeah I think so,” Clark said. “Let’s find out where we need to go.”

They walked over to the station Mr. Jefferson and Mrs. Skelton had set up in the middle of the clearing and waited behind the group currently getting their instructions. When the pair was given their map and headed off, Clark and Lewis stepped up to the desk. 

“Let’s see,” Mr. Jefferson muttered, running his finger down a list of the groups. “Here you are. Lewis and Clark, you are gathering a water and mud sample from a creek. It’s about 3 miles from here so it shouldn’t take you more than three hours to get there, collect your sample, and get back.”

Mrs. Skelton handed them a map with their campsite and the creek they were going to marked in sharpie. Clark grabbed the map and thanked her before they both headed off into the woods. Lewis let himself drift into thought as the meditative nature of the hike calmed him. ‘I can’t believe that I actually like Clark,’ he thought. ‘I need to figure out what to do about it. My friends will never accept me if I tell them that I might be gay and then everyone will hate me. I can’t tell anyone, not even Clark.’

By the time Lewis convinced himself that keeping his feelings a secret from everyone was a good idea, he had been walking for at least half an hour. He looked around and stopped when he didn’t see Clark anywhere. He waited for about 10 minutes before the boy came into view, hunched under the weight of his backpack and breathing loudly.  
“You. Went. The. Wrong. Way,” Clark said, sucking in air between each word.

“Oh sorry. I got distracted,” Lewis explained. “Do we need to go back and go down a different path?”

“I don’t think so. If we keep going this way and then take the next right we should get back on the right trail,” Clark replied.

“Ok great. Let’s go,” Lewis said.

“Hold on,” Clark said. “Give me a minute to catch my breath, this bag is heavy.”

“Do you want me to take it?” Lewis asked.

“No, I’m fine. I don’t need your help,” Clark responded. Lewis rolled his eyes. Clark was very obviously struggling to carry the bag. Lewis reached out and pulled it off Clark’s back, ignoring his protests as he continued down the trail.

They walked for about twenty more minutes before Clark stopped to pull out his map. 

“Huh,” he said. “We should have reached the place where the trail breaks off already. Hopefully, it comes up soon.”

“We better not be lost,” Lewis said.

“You’re the one who went ahead and went the wrong way, so it’s your fault if we’re lost,” Clark replied.

They continued walking, bickering back and forth over whose fault it would be and completely missing the small trail that branched off to the right. They got so caught up in their arguing that they kept walking for another mile and headed right off the trail. When Lewis began to feel hungry, he stopped and dropped the backpack on the forest floor to grab a snack. Clark stopped next to him and finally took in their surroundings.

“Shit!” he exclaimed. “We’re not on a trail anymore.”

Lewis looked around and realized that Clark was right.

“How the hell did we walk off the trail?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” Clark replied. “And I have no idea how to get back.”  
Lewis gulped loudly as the full weight of the situation hit him. They were lost in the middle of a national forest with only a few snacks and an undetailed map.

“Fuck,” he swore. “What do we do now?”

“I guess we have to try to find the trail again,” Clark said.

“I thought you said you had no idea how to get back.”

“I don’t but we can’t just stand here all day.”

“Fine, let’s go.”

They picked a direction that seemed familiar and started walking. After an hour passed and they still hadn’t found a trail, they changed directions hoping that they would come across something that was marked on their map. As the sun passed over them and began to set, they stopped to eat what little food they had.

“I don’t think we’re going to find our way back to the campsite tonight,” Lewis said.

“But all of our stuff is there,” Clark responded, beginning to panic. “We can’t just sleep out here without tents or sleeping bags.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Lewis said, digging into a bag of chips to try to fill his empty stomach. As they snacked, the sun fell behind the trees and its light began to fade away.

“Why is it becoming dark so quickly?” Clark asked.

“It’s almost winter. The days are getting shorter,” Lewis explained.

“Why don’t we just stay here for the night,” he continued. “Walking further will probably just get us more lost and there’s no point in tiring ourselves out more for no reason.”

“I guess you’re right,” Clark said hesitantly, looking around unhappily at the hard, dirty ground. They finished all of the snacks Clark had brought as the sun finally set and darkness filled the forest. 

“Let’s get some rest so we can try to get back early tomorrow morning,” Lewis said. 

“Okay,” Clark replied, laying down but quickly sitting up and turning to Lewis with a fearful look on his face. 

“What if an animal attacks us?” he asked.

“They wouldn't have sent us out alone in these woods if it was dangerous,” Lewis replied. “You have nothing to worry about. Now go to sleep.”  
Clark seemed to believe Lewis and lay back down. When he heard the boy’s breath slow and saw his body relax, Lewis laid down a few feet away from him and let himself drift off. He was woken just a few minutes later by the sound of Clark’s chattering teeth. The temperature had dropped suddenly and Lewis felt the cold start to seep through his clothes and into his bones. 

“Fuck it,” he muttered under his breath and crawled over to Clark, gathering him into his arms and quickly falling back to sleep.


	10. Clark POV

Clark was so warm. His mind tried to tug him back to reality, but Clark refused its summons. A small part of his brain continued to scream at him through the foggy haze of his dreams, saying he had fallen asleep in freezing, bitter cold. Clark just continued ignoring it, snuggling deeper into the warm blanket surrounding him. That blanked shifted in response, pulling him closer. Wait. What? 

Clark’s eyes shot open. The early morning light pierced through the treetops, sprinkling the earth with a dollops of warm sunshine. He was laying on the forest floor, with something wrapped around him. Glancing over his shoulder, he froze when he came nose to nose with Lewis. Clark’s entire brain emptied out. The universe could have exploded in that moment and he wouldn’t have noticed. He just sat there, barely thinking beyond his repeated thought of _‘Lewis, Lewis, Lewis.’_ He looked so… peaceful. His dark hair was splayed messily across his forehead and his chest rose and fell against Clark’s back in a deep, steady rhythm. Even the lines of his face, which were usually scrunched up in anger or pulled into a patronizing smirk were smooth. _‘He’s beautiful.’_

As soon as the thought entered Clark’s mind, he tried to shake himself out of it. _‘I can’t be thinking things like that. Last time I did, everything went to shit. Would it be different with him? No, it doesn’t even matter, he’s straight. Falling for a straight guy who will never look at you like that is a BAD IDEA. Is he straight though? Didn’t we almost kiss at the pool? No, he was just being friendly. It was nothing. Snap out of it.’_ As hard as Clark tried, he couldn’t stop the rush of feeling that filled his body. It felt like he had swallowed a swarm of butterflies and they were desperately trying to burst out of his stomach. The logical part of his brain yelled and screamed at him, but the feeling of Lewis’s arms around him and the sight of the sleeping boy make it incredibly hard to listen. 

Almost of its own accord, Clark’s hand reached up from its place at his side and brushed the hair off of Lewis’s forehead. The strands were silky soft as they ran through his fingers. Lewis started to stir, and Clark froze. Instead of waking up, the other boy simply leaned into the touch. Clark’s heart almost burst out of his chest. 

Honestly, Clark had no idea how long he laid there, enjoying the feeling of safety and the warmth of being in Lewis’s arms and stroking his hair, while he studied the other boy. He could tell that with each passing second, he was falling harder and harder, but decided that was a problem for another day. 

Suddenly a faint voice rang out through the forest. Clark glanced up from Lewis and looked around in confusion. It sounded like someone was yelling his name. ‘Maybe someone is coming to save us,’ Clark thought excitedly. Although it hurt his heart to do so, Clark rolled over and put his hand against Lewis’s chest, trying to shake him awake. “Lewis,” he hissed. “Wake up.” Lewis just groaned and rolled onto his back, dragging Clark with him. Ignoring the raging swarm of butterflies in his stomach, Clark sat up, still straddling Lewis and leaning over his chest, and kept shaking him. “Get up. I think someone’s here.” 

Lewis groaned again and pried his eyes open, looking up at Clark. Clark froze under his sleepy gaze. His eyes were gorgeous. Clark had never noticed the small rivulets of golden brown lacing through them before. Now, they were all he could think about. Clark watched, mesmerized, as those eyes filled with confusion. Lewis sat up suddenly, realizing that Clark was basically on top of him. Clark almost fell backward, but Lewis’s arms came up around him, preventing him from toppling over. Trapped in the circle of Lewis’s arms, Clark could do nothing more than stare into his eyes, barely thinking. The way Lewis stared down at Clark made him shiver, and that dark, heat filled gaze burned as it traced along every line of his face. He felt exposed under it, but relished the attention. He wanted so desperately to get lost in his eyes and never come out. Lewis swallowed. 

“Morning.” His already deep voice sounded raspy and low from sleep. Clark could feel the sound vibrating through his broad chest. 

“Morning,” Clark breathed, afraid of shattering the moment. Neither boy moved, content just to let their eyes rove around the other’s face, greedily drinking their fill. Lewis’s eyes traced over Clark’s pink cheeks, and fell to his lips. Clark’s eyes widened as he searched Lewis’s face, seeing the desire written plainly across it. The arms that were wrapped around Clark’s back had slid so one large hand was pulling him flush against Lewis and the other was cupping the back of his neck. Clark could feel Lewis’s long fingers threading through his hair. Almost involuntarily, Clark started to lean in. Lewis’s head started to dip down to meet him. He stopped a hair's breadth from Clark’s mouth, staring deep into his eyes. Every single nerve in Clark’s body was alight with desire. There was nothing he wanted more than to just be devoured by the boy in front of him. Clark could feel the soft exhale of his breath on his lips, and couldn’t take it anymore. The tension was going to kill him. He was just about to rise up and join their lips together, when a voice shattered through the air. 

“CLAARRRRKK!” “LEWISSS!” Both boys went rigid, staring in the direction of the voices. It sounded like some of their classmates. Lewis scrambled to his feet, lifting Clark up with him. He glanced down at Clark one last time before dropping him onto his feet and grabbing their bag of supplies. Clark just watched him, already mourning the loss of his warmth. Honestly, everything felt like a daze. _‘I almost kissed Lewis Yates. Lewis Yates likes men.’_ That was a fact he was sure of. Quite frankly, it had been staring him in the face and he just hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. Clark had no idea what this would mean for them. All he knew was that he had fallen hard, and wouldn’t be able to recover.  
Lewis swung the backpack onto his back before facing the forest. “We’re here!” he bellowed. Almost immediately, they heard a loud crashing coming closer and closer towards them. Clark took a step closer to Lewis, just in case. Suddenly, two forms came into view, dashing through the underbrush. 

“YES, WE FOUND THEM!” the boy yelled triumphantly. It was Matt, one of the kids in their Chemistry class. He was a scrawny boy with a smattering of light freckles across his nose. Next to him was a short, Asian girl. Clark was pretty sure her name was Leah, a girl in Mrs. Skelton’s class. Without warning, she barreled into him, knocking him back a step. Clark shot a confused glance at Lewis, who was watching them with something that looked suspiciously like jealousy in his eyes.

“We were so worried about you guys,” she gushed. “What happened?” Clark gave her an awkward pat on the back before stepping out of the hug. 

“We just got turned around, but got even more lost when we tried to find our way back,” Clark said sheepishly. 

“Alright, well, at least you guys are okay,” Matt said with a smile. Leah gave them a pitying look. 

“Not for long though, I’ve never seen Mr. Jefferson that angry,” she warned them. Lewis and Clark exchanged a grimace. Lewis sighed. 

“Well, no point in keeping him waiting any longer than we already have. Lead the way.” With that, the four of them plunged back into the forest, Lewis and Clark following closely behind Matt and Leah. 

They kept a fairly easy pace, but after half an hour Clark’s fatigue and hunger started to catch up to him. His breathing was labored and he could barely keep up with Leah’s rapid fire chatter. Luckily for him, she had stopped asking questions and was now talking to Matt about a new show she started watching. Lewis stayed mostly quiet, only talking when one of them asked him a direct question. They started going up a steady incline, and Clark’s breath felt like glass shredding his lungs. Lewis quirked an eyebrow at him. 

“You sound like a panting dog,” he said, amusement threading through his voice. Clark glared at him. 

“I'm sorry I'm not in shape,” he said sarcastically. “I don't spend my time running around with sweaty guys and playing with balls for fun like you do.” Lewis stopped in his tracks, momentarily speechless, before bursting out in laughter. Clark could feel his mouth pulling up into a smile at the joyous sound. 

“Hey, at least I can go for a walk without needing life support,” Lewis shot back. Clark just rolled his eyes and kept walking after Matt and Leah. They came upon a section of the forest that was coated with gnarly roots and loose rocks. Clark had to focus all his attention on not slipping. 

“Oooo, look! An eagle!” Leah called excitedly. Clark glanced up, sure enough, perched in one of the branches of the tree, was a bald eagle. The powerful bird stared down at them with judgmental, yellow eyes before spreading its great wings and launching itself into the air. Clark was so distracted by the sight, he didn't notice a large root reaching up out of the earth directly in his path. His foot caught underneath it, twisting painfully as Clark tried to take another step. He yelped, tripping over the root. Lewis lunged for him, but wasn’t close enough to catch him before he could crash to the ground. 

“Are you okay?” Lewis asked, worry coloring his voice. He hurried over and crouched in front of Clark, who was holding his ankle. Matt and Leah spun around, looking to see what happened. Clark groaned. His ankle throbbed horribly and every time he tried to move it slightly, burning pain sliced through it. 

“It’s okay,” Clark lied. He felt so stupid for tripping. Reaching over, Clark grabbed onto a nearby tree and tried to pull himself up. He got upright, but as soon as he tried to put weight on his foot, the pain was too intense and he collapsed. Or, would have collapsed if Lewis hadn’t caught him. Tears sprang into his eyes and Clark desperately tried to fight them back, not wanting to seem weak. 

“You clearly aren’t.” Lewis’s voice was tender. Leah and Matt hovered nearby, unsure of how to help. Keeping one arm around Clark, Lewis shrugged the backpack off of his shoulders and handed it to Leah. “Can you carry this? I’m going to help him.” Leah nodded and slung the bag over her shoulders. Lewis then turned to Clark, lifting his chin with a gentle finger. “Do you think you can jump on my back? I’ll carry you back to camp.” Clark shook his head, not wanting to be a burden. 

“It’s not too far off,” Matt piped in helpfully. Clark considered this for a second before giving in. 

“Alright,” he sighed. Lewis smiled at him before helping Clark hobble behind him. 

“Ready?” he asked. Clark nodded, and did the best he could to jump onto Lewis’s back. Lewis’s strong hands wrapped around his thighs and dragged him securely into place. Clark wrapped his arms around Lewis’s neck, leaning his head on Lewis’s shoulder. 

“Thank you,” he whispered, the pain having faded to a dull ache without any weight being put on it. Lewis just smiled crookedly at him. 

“Course.” He nodded at Matt and Leah, who exchanged a weighted glance. “Let’s go.” They once again resumed walking, pace having slowed even more to make sure Lewis could keep up. Clark’s eyelids started to droop; Lewis was just so warm. The comforting scent of his cologne filled Clark’s nose and the steady rocking of Lewis stepping carefully around obstacles lulled him to sleep. Before he knew it, his fatigue caught up to him and he drifted off. 

\--------

“Clark. Clark.” Clark could hear Lewis saying his name and could feel him shaking his thighs, trying to wake him up. Clark groggily lifted his head from Lewis’s shoulder to look around. 

“What’s up?” he asked. 

“We’re almost back at camp,” Lewis replied. Sure enough, Clark could see the colorful array of tents peeking through the trees in front of them. Yawning, Clark laid his head back on Lewis’s shoulder but didn’t try to fall back asleep. Matt glanced back at them before murmuring something to Leah, who nodded in agreement while shooting them a furtive look. Clark frowned at their suspicious whispers, wondering what they were talking about. Soon enough, they broke through the tree line and onto the camp ground. 

“We found them!” Matt called. The other students let out a cheer. Mrs. Skelton, who had been pacing back and forth, raced over to meet them. 

“Oh my god, are you okay?” she fussed. 

“I sprained my ankle,” Clark said sheepishly. 

“Come here, I’ll bandage you up.” She led them over to a tent and pulled out a first aid kit. Clark carefully slid off of Lewis’s back and sat on a nearby cooler. Lewis walked over and leaned on the side of the tent pole behind Clark. 

“You’re not mad at us?” Clark asked, worried that she would yell at the two of them. 

“No, I'm just glad you’re safe.” Clark let out a relieved breath. Mrs. Skelton snatched a bandage from the first aid kit and carefully pulled Clark’s ankle into her lap. 

“Are you sure you know what you're doing?” Lewis sounded incredibly skeptical. Mrs. Skelton shot him an annoyed look. 

“Yes. Why don't you go get us some water?” she said, all too sweetly. Lewis stared her down before glancing at Clark. Clark gave him an encouraging nod of his head. 

“Fine,” Lewis said, storming off to find water. Mrs. Skelton went back to wrapping Clark’s ankle before looking up at him. 

“You know, my husband used to hover around me like that whenever I would get hurt back in grade school,” she said knowingly. Clark felt his face turn beet red, desperately thinking of ways to change the subject. 

“How long have you two been married?” he blurted out. She humored him, happily jumping into conversation. 

“Oh, I think we’re coming up on 20 years now, though we started dating in 11th grade.”

“Wow,” Clark said, honestly impressed. “Congratulations!” 

“Thank you! He’s the love of my life. I don’t know what I would do without him,” she said dreamily. Clark smiled, and they fell into an easy silence as she finished wrapping his ankle. Lewis came back and handed Clark a cup of water, which he downed gratefully. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was. 

“Thank you for wrapping it up, it feels a million times better,” Clark said, trying to stand up while still putting as little weight on his foot as possible. He felt Lewis’s hand come up to his lower back, steadying him. 

“Of course! I have a lot of practice. My kids are a rowdy bunch,” Mrs. Skelton said with a smile. It faded from her face when she glanced behind them. “I think you two should brace yourselves, Mr. Jefferson just got back.” After throwing them a sympathetic look, she walked away to go monitor the other students. Lewis helped Clark hobble around to face the incoming teacher. Mr. Jefferson’s hair was in a state of disarray and his glasses were crooked. The look on his face made Clark’s blood run cold. He was livid. Clark had never seen him mad before. 

“You guys were just supposed to be collecting water samples! It was only three miles away! How the heck did you get lost?” he yelled. Even when mad, Mr. Jefferson still wouldn’t swear at them. 

“We both have a terrible sense of direction and got turned around really easily in the forest. We’re so, so sorry.” Clark hated that his bottom lip quivered as he spoke, but his emotions were threatening to choke all the air out of his lungs. He hated, hated, disappointing adults. He felt a warm presence step closer behind him, and leaned gratefully against Lewis’s chest. 

“Look, we successfully survived the night on our own. Can't we just think of it as a cool science experiment or something? There's no need to be mad,” Lewis reasoned. Clark could tell it was the wrong thing to say. Mr. Jefferson looked like was going to explode. 

“No need to be mad?! What you did wasn’t ‘cool’, you two could have died! Clark’s lucky he just sprained his ankle!” Someone must have filled him in on Clark’s injury. Clark wished that person could have tried a little harder to calm the teacher down. Mr. Jefferson’s anger made Clark want to curl in on himself. Only Lewis’s support kept him from falling apart. 

“I don't know what more you want us to say. We apologized and it won't happen again.” Lewis’s voice sounded tight and angry and the hands he had pressed into Clark’s sides curled into fists. 

“You’re damn right it won’t. You two have detention for a week, end of story.” Mr. Jefferson turned to where the rest of the students had gathered to watch them get yelled at. 

“Let's get out of here, kids. I’ve had enough of this nightmare to last a lifetime.” Everyone quickly sprung into action, gathering their camping supplies and shuffling towards the bus. Leah handed the backpack back to Lewis, who picked up all the rest of their stuff as well. Clark tried to offer his help, but Lewis wouldn’t let him carry anything. Soon enough, everyone was filing onto the bus. When Lewis and Clark went to hop on, Mr. Jefferson pulled them out of the stream of kids. Leah threw Clark a sympathetic look before hopping on. 

“Not yet, you two get to sit up in the front next to me. I’m not taking my eyes off you for a second.” Clark and Lewis exchanged an irritated glance, but didn’t say anything. Once everyone else had gotten on, the two of them boarded. Clark jumped on one foot up the steps, Lewis behind him to catch him if he fell. Clark slid into the closest seat, glad to be off of his ankle, which resumed its painful throbbing from the short walk to the bus. Lewis sat down next to him, throwing their stuff on the floor at their feet. Mr. Jefferson hopped on the bus last, and took out a clipboard. 

“Time for roll call, gotta make sure we didn't lose anyone else,” his voice rang through the bus. The other kids let out a collective chuckle at his words. Clark could feel himself relaxing as well; if Mr. Jefferson was joking around, things were definity looking up. “Clark Williams Anderson,” he called. Clark raised his eyebrows at the use of his middle name, before responding with a polite ‘here.’ Mr. Jefferson ran through the list fairly quickly, each name being met with a shouted response. Finally, Mr. Jefferson reached the last name on the list. “Lewis Merriweather Yates,” he called. 

“Here,” Lewis said tightly. Mr. Jefferson sat down in his seat and signaled to the bus driver, who pulled out onto the road. Clark glanced over at Lewis, a smile on his face. Lewis refused to meet his gaze, instead staring intently at the seat in front of him. 

“Your middle name is... Merriweather?” Clark said, trying to hold in a laugh. Lewis glared at him. 

“Shut up, it's not that bad,” he protested. Clark burst into laughter.

“It sounds like something an old British dude would name his dog,” he said in between giggles. Lewis tried to glare at him, but couldn’t fight the smile blooming across his face. 

“At least my middle name isn't Williams. That's so boring,” he said. Clark looked up in outrage. 

“Don't try to turn this on me. I’d take Williams over Merriweather any day of the week,” he said before dissolving into another fit of giggles. Lewis rolled his eyes and gave him a playful shove on the shoulder. 

“You're so annoying.” All of a sudden, the bus went full speed over a massive pothole in the road. The kids were thrown into the air with a chorus of shouts. Clark would have smacked his head on the window next to him, but Lewis snaked his arm around him and pulled him back just in time. 

“Thanks, Merriweather,” Clark said gleefully, bursting into another fit of giggles. 

“I hate you,” Lewis said fondly, staring down at Clark. 

“I hate you too,” he replied, leaning back against Lewis. Lewis’s arm tightened around him and he rested his head on top of Clark’s, quickly falling asleep. Clark, who was wide awake from having slept on the walk, was content to just relax against Lewis, watching as the scenery blurred by the windows of the bus.


End file.
